Angela's Ashes: Summary and book reviews of Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt, plus links to an excerpt from Angela's Ashes and a biography of Frank McCourt.

"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 Pulitzer Prize winning 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.

Media Reviews

The New York Times - Michiko Kakutani The reader of this stunning memoir can only hope that Mr. McCourt will set down the story of his subsequent adventures in America in another book. Angela's Ashes is so good it deserves a sequel. Newsweek - Malcom Jones, Jr. It is only the best storyteller who can so beguile his readers that he leaves them wanting more when he's done. With Angela's Ashes, McCourt proves himself one of the very best.

Recent Reader Reviews

Rated of 5 by K. Combs
Poverty through the eyes of a child
Our book club read this book last year. I fell it love with this book. Frank McCourt's description of his life via his eyes as a child were so real, sad and yet humorous all at the same time. And yet to still be aware it was all true. I laughed...   Read More

Rated of 5 by E.G.BAHADIR
im my opinion it is the best
It is one of the wonderful books I have read. In this book everything is perfect -subject,reality and others. I can't explain more because I only know a little English. THANK YOU MR McCOURT

Review (not rated) by novice
angela's ashes
Sorry to say that I did not feel like masses who read the book. I really don't know why the Poverty or Crack or any such thing always gets so popular-- is it the weakness of human mind which becomes kind of sympathetic for these values? To me, It'...   Read More

Rated of 5 by Holly
Angela's Ashes
This book is highly recommended, after reading this book...it made me realize that there is a reason for everything. This book makes me a better person.

Rated of 5 by Sly McGillacutty
Book Therapy
Oh - please. And I thought Teacher Man was whiney. What a sour puss! What a lowly whiner. For god's sake man - you had a bad childhood - but this book seems like it was blurted out during therapy. Got tired of the driveling and complaining 30 pages...   Read More

Rated of 5 by siobhan
it is a great novel that gives a clear perspective on Frank's life and makes you really feel for him

...82 More Reader Reviews

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