“Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood. “Worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood.”
These lines basically sum up what’s to read in Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes. The author recounts his desperately poor early years, living on public assistance and losing three siblings, wearing shoes repaired with tires, begging a pig’s head for Christmas dinner, and searching the pubs for his father who is drinking away the family’s dinner.
Without the humor, the book would have been a very difficult read for me. I almost put it down in despair after reading just about twenty pages. But I’m glad that I didn’t.
My bestfriend from the US gave this book to me as a Christmas present last year. It became one of my favorite. I really like it that I downloaded the film version over the net… and i was not disappointed.