Angela's Ashes is about the author, Frank McCourt's, childhood in Ireland. His family was very poor because his father, Malachy, used all of his paychecks to drink. They lived in horrible conditions in Limerick, Ireland after being in Dublin and New York City. Through all of this, Frank has to provide for his family as he gets older, and he also finds who he really is and what he wants in life.
Mary Gordan said, "I was moved and dazzled by the somber and lively beauty of this book;it is a story of survival and growth beyond all odds, a chronicle of surprising triumphs, written in a language that is always itself triumphant."
Frank McCourt writes his memoir from the first person, and as if it is the first time he is experiencing the events.
There are many elements and themes in this story including hunger, poverty, and class snobbery. When writing dialogue, he does not use quotation mark, which can be confusing. Through the book, Frank describes how he gets past all of this to become who he is now. McCourt also wrote Tis' which is a sequel to Angela's Ashes. I plan on reading it, as it describes what happens after the first story ends.
"I have to go downstairs again and show the men where to step to keep their feet dry. They keep shaking their heads and saying, God Almighty and Mother of God, this is desperate"(104).
Frank McCourt's story was really moving, and it opened my eyes to poverty in different places. It also gave me a better idea of what Ireland and America were like in the 1930s and 1940s. I plan on reading Tis' to find out what happened to Frank as he became a man.
