Tis: A Memoir (Frank McCourt Memoirs, The) - Softcover

McCourt, Frank

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0684864495 ISBN 13: 9780684864495

Publisher: Scribner, 1999

Synopsis

/ 0-684-86574-2 / English literature / Engels / English / Anglais / Englisch / paperback / 14 x 22 cm / 367 .pp /

About this title

Review:

The sequel to Frank McCourt's memoir of his Irish Catholic boyhood, Angela's Ashes, picks up the story in October 1949 upon his arrival in America. Though he was born in New York, the family had returned to Ireland due to poor prospects in the United States. Now back on American soil, this awkward 19-year-old, with his "pimply face, sore eyes, and bad teeth," has little in common with the healthy, self-assured college students he sees on the subway and dreams of joining in the classroom. Initially, his American experience is as harrowing as his impoverished youth in Ireland, including two of the grimmest Christmases ever described in literature. McCourt views the U.S. through the same sharp eye and dark humour that distinguished his first memoir; race prejudice, casual cruelty and dead-end jobs weigh on his spirits as he searches for a way out. A glimpse of hope comes from the army, where he acquires some white-collar skills, and from New York University, which admits him without a high school diploma. But the journey toward his position teaching creative writing at Stuyvesant High School is neither quick nor easy. Fortunately, McCourt's openness to every variety of human emotion and longing remains exceptional; even the most damaged, difficult people he encounters are richly rendered individuals with whom the reader can't help but feel uncomfortable kinship. The magical prose, with its singing Irish cadences, brings grandeur and beauty to the most sorrowful events, including the final scene, in which Angela's ashes are scattered over a Limerick graveyard. --Wendy Smith

Review:

Malcolm Jones "Newsweek""'Tis" is the story of a man finding two great vocations -- teaching and storytelling...a hard-nosed but lyrical conclusion to the story begun in "Angela's Ashes."

Peter Collier "Los Angeles Times Book Review""'Tis" has those elements that made "Angela's Ashes" such a success -- the narrative brio, the fierce sympathy for human tie and torment, the intuitive feel for character and above all the love of language.

About this edition

• Publisher: Scribner
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0684864495
• ISBN 13: 9780684864495
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 604