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Angela's Ashes: A Memoir
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Angela's Ashes: A Memoir Hardcover - 1996

by Frank McCourt

Born in depression-era Brooklyn to recent Irish immigrants, Frank McCourt experienced a childhood fraught with poverty and occasional cruelty. When the family moves back to Limerick, Frank endures the most miserable of childhoods. An astonishing, glorious debut, Angela's Ashes recounts McCourt's existence with remarkable exuberance and remarkable forgiveness.


From the publisher

Angela's Ashes, imbued on every page with Frank McCourt's astounding humor and compassion, is a glorious book that bears all the marks of a classic. "When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive at all. 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." So begins the luminous memoir of Frank McCourt, born in Depression-era Brooklyn to recent Irish immigrants and raised in the slums of Limerick, Ireland. Frank's mother, Angela, has no money to feed the children since Frank's father, Malachy, rarely works, and when he does he drinks his wages. Yet Malachy -- exasperating, irresponsible and beguiling-- does nurture in Frank an appetite for the one thing he can provide: a story. Frank lives for his father's tales of Cuchulain, who saved Ireland, and of the Angel on the Seventh Step, who brings his mother babies. Perhaps it is story that accounts for Frank's survival. Wearing rags for diapers, begging a pig's head for Christmas dinner and gathering coal from the roadside to light a fire, Frank endures poverty, near-starvation and the casual cruelty of relatives and neighbors--yet lives to tell his tale with eloquence, exuberance and remarkable forgiveness.

From the rear cover

"When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive at all. 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". So begins the luminous memoir of Frank McCourt, born in Depression-era Brooklyn to recent Irish immigrants and raised in the slums of Limerick, Ireland. Frank's mother, Angela, has no money to feed the children since Frank's father, Malachy, rarely works, and when he does he drinks his wages. Yet Malachy - exasperating, irresponsible and beguiling - does nurture in Frank an appetite for the one thing he can provide: a story. Frank lives for his father's tales of Cuchulain, who saved Ireland, and of the Angel on the Seventh Step, who brings his mother babies.

Details

  • Title Angela's Ashes: A Memoir
  • Author Frank McCourt
  • Binding Hardcover
  • Edition First Edition
  • Pages 368
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Scribner Book Company, New York
  • Date 1996-09-05
  • Illustrated Yes
  • ISBN 9780684874357 / 0684874350
  • Weight 1.22 lbs (0.55 kg)
  • Dimensions 9.56 x 6.34 x 1.16 in (24.28 x 16.10 x 2.95 cm)
  • Reading level 1110
  • Themes
    • Chronological Period: 1930's
    • Chronological Period: 1900-1949
    • Cultural Region: British
    • Cultural Region: Ireland
    • Ethnic Orientation: Irish
    • Religious Orientation: Catholic
    • Topical: Family
  • Library of Congress subjects Irish Americans, Limerick (Limerick, Ireland)
  • Library of Congress Catalog Number 96005335
  • Dewey Decimal Code B

Media reviews

Citations

  • Booklist, 08/01/1996, Page 1851
  • Entertainment Weekly, 07/31/2009, Page 61
  • Kirkus Reviews, 07/01/1996, Page 951
  • Library Journal, 08/01/1996, Page 0
  • Library Journal Prepub Alert, 05/01/1996, Page 82
  • LJ Best Books of Year, 01/01/1997, Page 50
  • New York Times, 09/15/1996, Page 13
  • Publishers Weekly, 07/01/1996, Page 49
  • School Library Journal, 06/01/1997, Page 155
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Angela's Ashes
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Angela's Ashes

by Frank McCourt

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Angela's Ashes
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Angela's Ashes

by Frank McCourt

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ISBN 13
9780684874357
ISBN 10
0684874350
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Angela's Ashes
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Angela's Ashes

by Frank McCourt

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ISBN 13
9780684874357
ISBN 10
0684874350
Quantity Available
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Waltham, Massachusetts, United States
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Angela's Ashes
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Angela's Ashes

by Frank McCourt

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9780684874357
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Angela's Ashes
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Angela's Ashes

by Frank McCourt

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ISBN 13
9780684874357
ISBN 10
0684874350
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Angela's Ashes
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Angela's Ashes

by Frank McCourt

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9780684874357
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ANGELA'S ASHES (THE FRANK MCCOUR
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ANGELA'S ASHES (THE FRANK MCCOUR

by McCourt, Frank

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Angela's Ashes
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Angela's Ashes

by McCourt, Frank

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ISBN 13
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ISBN 10
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Angela's Ashes (The Frank McCourt Memoirs)
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Angela's Ashes (The Frank McCourt Memoirs)

by McCourt, Frank

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Angela's Ashes (The Frank McCourt Memoirs)
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Angela's Ashes (The Frank McCourt Memoirs)

by McCourt, Frank

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