 |
This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please improve this article if you can. (October 2009) |
| Angela's Ashes | |
|---|---|
 First edition cover |
|
| Author | Frank McCourt (1930-2009) |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Scribner |
| Publication date | 5 September 1996 |
| Pages | 368 pp |
| ISBN | ISBN 0684874350 |
| OCLC Number | 34284265 |
| Dewey Decimal | 929/.2/0899162073 20 |
| LC Classification | E184.I6 M117 1996 |
| Followed by | 'Tis |
Angela’s Ashes is a memoir by Irish-American author Frank McCourt and tells the story of his childhood in Brooklyn and Ireland. It was published in 1996 and won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography.
Contents |
Plot summary
Born in Brooklyn, New York on 19 August 1930, Frank McCourt was the eldest son of Malachy and Angela McCourt. Frank McCourt lived in New York with his parents and four younger siblings: Malachy, born in 1931; twins Oliver and Eugene, born in 1932; and a younger sister, Margaret, who died just a few weeks after birth, in 1935. Following this first tragedy, his family moved back to Ireland, where the twin brothers died within a year of the family's arrival and where Frank's youngest brothers, Michael (b. 1936) and Alphie (b. 1940), were born.
Life in Ireland, specifically life in Limerick City, in the 1930s and 1940s is described in all its grittiness. The family lived in a dilapidated, unpaved lane of houses that regularly flooded and where they shared one outdoor toilet with all their neighbors. Although his father taught the children Irish stories and songs, he was an alcoholic and seldom found work. When he did find work, he spent his pay in the pubs. His family was forced to live on the dole (welfare) since he could not hold down a paying job for very long due to his alcoholism. The father would often pick up and spend the welfare payment before Angela could get her hands on it. For years the family subsisted on little more than bread and tea. They lived in fear of eternal damnation for not praying or doing devotions as often as prescribed by Roman Catholic Church authorities. Despite all the hardships, many passages of the story are told with wry humor and charm.
Frank's father eventually found a job at a defence plant in Coventry, England, yet he sent money back to his struggling family in Ireland only once. As there were few jobs for women at the time, their mother was forced to ask for help from the Church and the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul. Sometimes, Frank and his brothers scavenged for lumps of coal or peat turf for fuel or stole bread in order to survive. Angela's mother (a widow) and sister refused to help because they disapproved of her husband, mostly because he was from Northern Ireland.
In the damp, cold climate of Ireland, each child had only one set of ragged clothes, patched shoes, and lacked a coat. Frank developed typhoid and was hospitalized. Later, he got a job helping a neighbor who had leg problems; he delivered coal for the neighbor and as a result developed chronic conjunctivitis. The family was finally evicted after they took a hatchet to the walls of their rented home to burn for heat. The family was forced to move in with a distant relative who treated them very badly and eventually forced a sexual relationship on Frank's mother, Angela. As a teen, Frank worked at the post office as a telegram delivery boy and later delivered newspapers and magazines for Eason's. He also worked for the local money lender, writing threatening demand letters as a means to save enough to finally realize his dream of returning to the United States. When the money lender died, he found her hidden money, and threw her ledger of debtors into the river. The story ends with Frank's sailing into Poughkeepsie, New York, ready to begin a new life at age nineteen.
Awards and recognition
Angela’s Ashes won several awards, including the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography, the 1996 National Book Critics Circle Award (Biography) and the 1997 Boeke Prize.
Controversy
Many in Limerick have claimed that McCourt's recollections of the city are inaccurate.[1][2] In an interview in 2000, Richard Harris took McCourt to task over his attitude toward Limerick and the citizens of the city.[3]
References
Further reading
- Hagan, Edward A. “Really an Alley Cat? Angela’s Ashes and Critical Orthodoxy”, New Hibernia Review / Iris Éireannach Nua 4:4 (Winter 2000): 39-52.
- Lenz, Peter. "'To Hell or to America?': Tragicomedy in Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes and the Irish Literary Tradition", Anglia: Zeitschrift für Englische Philologie 118:3 (2000): 411-20.
- McCourt, Frank. Tis: A Memoir, Scribner (August 2000)
External links
- Frank McCourt discusses Angela's Ashes on the BBC World Book Club
- Book Discussion at the Glendale Community College English Department website
- Reading Group Guides on Angela's Ashes
- Booknotes interview with McCourt on Angela's Ashes, August 31, 1997.
- > Cañadas, Ivan. “Lazarillo in Limerick: Angela’s Ashes and the Shadow of the Picaresque Tradition on Contemporary Literature.” Inter-Cultural Studies: A Forum on Cultural Change & Diversity 6 (2006): 9-19
- Cullen, Kevin. “Memoir Lashed, and Loved: Angela’s Ashes Author Finds Foes, Friends in Limerick”, Limerick Globe October 29, 1997
- Late Author’s Younger Brother Remembers Childhood Poverty Depicted in Angela’s Ashes - video report by Democracy Now!
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
