Frank McCourt in general

Autobiographies fall into two categories. First off, there are those written by celebrities, which we read to gain an insight into the life of someone from the public eye. Often, these life stories are fairly dull, but we still eat them up and get them on the bestseller list every week. Secondly, there are those written by someone who is, in themselves, not a celebrity, but has had a life that is so interesting (normally for negative reasons) that the public will want to read about it; Frank McCourt's trilogy falls into the second category. Quite why we seem to enjoy reading stories of terrible events that have happened in people's lives I'm not sure, but if that sort of ...  Read the complete review

"Angela's Ashes" This is the story of an Irish emigrant family. Forced with a father’s unbelievable dreamy vision of life the McCourts return to the emerald isle, where through the eyes of the eldest of two boys, ‘Francis’, we find that once the very thin green surface is scratched, nothing lies beneath but a muddy dead end lane. When the book was first published there were public burnings of the book in Irish communities in cities in the United States and in Frank McCourt’s home city of Limerick. It was claimed that the story of ‘Francis’ was over exaggerated, too far-fetched some said. But it has come ...  Read the complete review