RIP Francis “Frank” McCourt 1930 – 2009
The ABC reports that Frank McCourt has died at 78 as a result of complications in treating melanoma.
He was born and died in New York City, but gained his fame for the autobiographical novel he wrote about growing up in Limerick, Ireland during the Depression, Angela’s Ashes
“It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood.”
He entered writing late, after decades spent as a school teacher in New York, but his book was worth waiting for, and, amazingly, not the “total downer” that you would assume.
4 comments
May he rest in peace.
i only made it halfway through the book before the cats rearranged my library. i hope i find it again someday, it started off well …
.-= ´s last blog .. =-.
The voice of the story teller was new and true and the story itself was a tale of survival and persistence. I didn’t find it a ‘downer’ as much as an indictment on the entire political and economic structure of Ireland. I’m glad he survived.
.-= ´s last blog ..I’m reading Idiot America at the moment =-.
It fits a standard category of Irish literature, which, as Jams O’Donnell can tell you, is best represented by Brian O’Nolan’s work written under multiple pseudonyms, Flann O’Brien being the best known.