Angela’s Ashes

~ MaryG

What’s a piece of media (book, movie, song) that changed how you see the world?

Weirdly the book that’s coming to mind is Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt, which came out in 1996 and won a Pulitzer. It seemed that everyone read it at the same time.

It’s a memoir of McCourt’s desperately impoverished childhood in Limerick, Ireland, after his family returned from Brooklyn. It follows young Frank navigating alcoholism, death, hunger, and humiliation, centered on his father’s chronic drunkenness and his resilient mother Angela.

McCourt was the same generation as my parents—born in the 1930s. Their parents were also poor Catholic immigrants, including some from Ireland to Brooklyn like McCourt.

I still think of that book when people talk about income inequality, tenements, an alcoholic father, or “food insecurity” (aka starvation) in a country of plenty.

I know they made a film out of it, but it’s the book that stayed with me.

17 thoughts on “Angela’s Ashes”

  3. When I seen your post after a brief pop in today on WordPress the title was very familiar to me.
    Before commenting, I thought to myself I must have seen this film to be so familiar of the title Angela’s Ashes. But looking up the clip to the actor and actress were who I thought they were. But watching the rest of the preview, I can’t remember. If I watched it, I must have seen it some years ago. I am going to have to watch again.
    I haven’t read the book though. So, going to check to see if I can get that on my library app and read later if so.

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      1. On the app on I can’t get it. I haven’t looked at the other library system for the paper book just yet. But looked about getting it second hand and there are lots of choices there. So, I am likely to do that.

        I am hoping it starts to get cool over the weekend. But with knowing how things have changed this week, anything can happen. 😊

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  4. The ability to find humor in the most terrible things is a real gift. I loved this book back then. Now you have me wondering whether it made a difference to my awareness of poverty.

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    1. Yes! Humor without sugarcoating any of it. I think it helped me understand 20th century poverty better and also the trauma wrought by an alcoholic Irish Catholic father, which seems like a stereotype but is all too real for many.

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      1. Absolutely. I can really see that. It was such a common pattern that one imagines all the kids growing up that way, believing it’s normal or inevidible. I remember he did a great job of describing kid logic when you justify odd things along the way.

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  5. It’s a book I have never read, but has been on my TBR for ages. Thanks for bringing the book to my attention. I remember a friend who suggested that if women had more than two children, then they shouldn’t get state aid. And she considered herself a good Christian. No doubt this was something she had heard from other “good Christians” in her church circle. I don’t remember my response. Unfortunately I am not good at the quick comeback. I hope I mentioned that the children had no control over the circumstances of their lives and deserved to have enough of everything. But I don’t really remember.

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