Angela's Ashes: A Memoir

Angela's Ashes: A Memoir
by Frank McCourt

Angela's Ashes: A Memoir
List Price: $16.00
Our Price: $2.93
You Save: $13.07 (82%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions


(Click here)
Buy this book at online book store in your country
Canada | UK | Germany | France

Book Summary Information

Author: Frank McCourt
Designer: Brooke Zimmer
Designer: John Fontana
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1999-05-25
ISBN: 068484267X
Number of pages: 368
Publisher: Scribner
Product features:
  • ISBN13: 9780684842677
  • Condition: New
  • Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Accessories:

Summary of Angela's Ashes: A Memoir

?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.

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.


"Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood," writes Frank McCourt in Angela's Ashes. "Worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood." Welcome, then, to the pinnacle of the miserable Irish Catholic childhood. Born in Brooklyn in 1930 to recent Irish immigrants Malachy and Angela McCourt, Frank grew up in Limerick after his parents returned to Ireland because of poor prospects in America. It turns out that prospects weren't so great back in the old country either--not with Malachy for a father. A chronically unemployed and nearly unemployable alcoholic, he appears to be the model on which many of our more insulting cliches about drunken Irish manhood are based. Mix in abject poverty and frequent death and illness and you have all the makings of a truly difficult early life. Fortunately, in McCourt's able hands it also has all the makings for a compelling memoir.

Irish Books

Book Subjects
Most talked about in Irish Books
All of These People: A Memoir ImageAll of These People: A Memoir
by Fergal Keane
HarperCollins UK; Published: 2006-10-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $59.23
Friends, Voters, Countrymen ImageFriends, Voters, Countrymen
by Boris Johnson
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd; Published: 2001-10-15; Hardcover; Book
Shadows of a Princess ImageShadows of a Princess
by P D Jephson
Harper Collins; Published: 2000-10-09; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $77.43
Elizabeth ImageElizabeth
by David Starkey
Harper Collins Audio; Published: 2001-02-19; Audio Cassette; Book
Reach for the Sky ImageReach for the Sky
by Paul Brickhill
HarperCollins Publishers Canada, Limited; Published: 1989; Paperback; Book
Furious Interiors ImageFurious Interiors
by Justin Wintle
Harpercollins; Published: 1996-11-04; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $150.50
The cousins: The friendship, opinions and activities of Wilfrid Scawen Blunt and George Wyndham ImageThe cousins: The friendship, opinions and activities of Wilfrid Scawen Blunt and George Wyndham
by Max Egremont
Collins; Published: 1977; Hardcover; Book
Twopence to Cross the Mersey ImageTwopence to Cross the Mersey
by Diana Quick
Harpercollins Adult Audio; Published: 1992-01; Hardcover; Book
Henry IV, Part I (Oxford School Shakespeare Series) (Pt. 1) ImageHenry IV, Part I (Oxford School Shakespeare Series) (Pt. 1)
by William Shakespeare
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 1995-10-20; Paperback; Book
Best price: $49.94
Brutal: The Untold Story of My Life Inside Whitey Bulger's Irish Mob ImageBrutal: The Untold Story of My Life Inside Whitey Bulger's Irish Mob
by Kevin Weeks, Phyllis Karas
William Morrow Paperbacks; Published: 2007-03-13; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.92
Price in other shops: $15.99
Similar Books and other products
The Joy Luck Club ImageThe Joy Luck Club
by Amy Tan
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2006-09-21; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.09
Price in other shops: $15.00
Teacher Man: A Memoir ImageTeacher Man: A Memoir
by Frank McCourt
Scribner; Published: 2005-09-19; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.28
Price in other shops: $16.00
Breath, Eyes, Memory (Oprah's Book Club) ImageBreath, Eyes, Memory (Oprah's Book Club)
by Edwidge Danticat
Vintage; Published: 1998-01-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.98
Price in other shops: $14.95
Rain of Gold ImageRain of Gold
by Víctor E. Villaseñor
Delta; Published: 1992-10-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.58
Price in other shops: $18.00
Oroonoko (Penguin Classics) ImageOroonoko (Penguin Classics)
by Aphra Behn
Penguin Classics; Published: 2004-05-25; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.95
Price in other shops: $11.00
Ireland 1798-1998: War, Peace and Beyond ImageIreland 1798-1998: War, Peace and Beyond
by Alvin Jackson
Wiley-Blackwell; Published: 2010-05-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $31.82
Price in other shops: $44.95
The Great Hunger: Ireland: 1845-1849 ImageThe Great Hunger: Ireland: 1845-1849
by Cecil Woodham-Smith
Penguin Group; Published: 1992-09-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.90
Price in other shops: $18.00
'Tis: A Memoir Image'Tis: A Memoir
by Frank McCourt
Simon & Schuster; Published: 2000-08-28; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.72
Price in other shops: $16.00
Teacher Man: A Memoir ImageTeacher Man: A Memoir
by Frank McCourt
Scribner; Published: 2005-11-15; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $3.75
Price in other shops: $26.00
Tis: A Memoir ImageTis: A Memoir
by Frank McCourt
Scribner; Published: 2000-08-28; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.01
Price in other shops: $14.00
Book store. Illustrated catalog of books on different categories