Somebody warned me off Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt because it’s depressing. I still might have started it earlier but the print in my paperback edition is small, and anymore, print size is one of the deciding factors in whether I’ll read a book or not. But I started it anyway a few weeks ago and, slow reader that I am, just finished it, and I would have missed something wonderful if I hadn’t finally picked it up.
This memoir of growing up in poverty in Ireland, “utterly heartbreaking” as one reviewer wrote, leaves me feeling far from depressed, though I admit to reaching for the Kleenex frequently as young Frank finally sails to America at age nineteen and the book comes to an end with me wanting much more. Although it’s a very personal narrative, for me it was impossible to read without a profound awareness of how truly wealthy we are to live in this country and in this time, the recession notwithstanding. At the same time, McCourt enjoyed a kind of protected youth, growing up in a brief era when poverty and violence were not so linked as they are today.
A quick look at Amazon confirms that I’ll have more to keep me busy as I try to find ways to pass the long afternoons in the deserts of Southern California and Arizona this winter. McCourt, who ended up teaching high school English and winning a Pulitzer Prize, has several other books, all of them again memoirs it seems, and his brother Malachy has a few of his own.
Angela’s Ashes was copyrighted in 1996, so as usual my “discovery” is over a decade old. It’s been a best-seller ever since, so my belated recommendation adds little to what has already been said, except perhaps to the few readers of this blog who haven’t yet come upon it.
1 comment:
I bought it in audio form as Melissa and I were about to make our 1997 move to the East Coast. It got us across Texas, and for that I will be forever grateful.
Although abridged, McCourt was a great reader, and I wish I had kept that recording.
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