Frank's AshesFrank McCourt
died.
Those of you who are not Irish may only vaguely remember the name, but the Irish among us will never forget Angela's Ashes, McCourt's recounting of a terribly deprived childhood of an alcoholic father and an enabling mother.
It was a huge bestseller; I doubt there are many Irish in America who will confess to not having read it. It is a quite compelling and tragicomic story. Frank and his brother, Malachy, often went hungry because their father would go on a bender whenever he got paid, which unfortunately wasn't often because he was too much a drunk to stick with anything for long.
Where the story does become comical is on those paydays, as Frank and Malachy fantasize all the food they're going to eat when Daddy gets home. But of course as the afternoon turns into evening, and the evening into night, they realize that he's gone on an other bender, and by the time he returns there will be no money left for food.
As a result of his book, McCourt became a prominent professional Irishman and was featured extensively in the PBS series,
The Irish in America.
Labels: Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt
