---
product_id: 1443822
title: "Angela's Ashes: A Memoir"
price: "₩35047"
currency: KRW
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 8
url: https://www.desertcart.kr/products/1443822-angelas-ashes-a-memoir
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---

# Classic memoir storytelling Humor amid hardship Authentic Irish cultural voice Angela's Ashes: A Memoir

**Price:** ₩35047
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## Summary

> 📖 Dive into the unforgettable Irish saga that’s as heartwarming as it is heartbreaking!

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- **What is this?** Angela's Ashes: A Memoir
- **How much does it cost?** ₩35047 with free shipping
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## Key Features

- • **Raw, Unfiltered Memoir:** Experience the gritty reality of 1930s-40s Irish-American life through Frank McCourt’s vivid first-person narrative.
- • **Emotional Rollercoaster:** Laugh, cry, and reflect with a story that balances heartbreaking loss with moments of levity and hope.
- • **Cultural & Historical Depth:** Dive deep into Irish immigrant struggles, poverty, and family dynamics during the Depression era, enriched with authentic vernacular and humor.
- • **Unique Child’s Perspective:** See tragedy and resilience through the innocent, humorous eyes of a young boy, making heavy themes accessible and engaging.
- • **Critically Acclaimed Bestseller:** Join thousands of readers who rated this memoir 4.4/5 and propelled it to top ranks in immigrant and memoir categories.

## Overview

Angela’s Ashes is Frank McCourt’s Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir recounting his impoverished childhood in Depression-era Ireland and America. Told through the eyes of a young boy, it blends tragic family struggles with humor and cultural authenticity, making it a timeless classic that resonates with readers seeking both emotional depth and historical insight.

## Description

Angela's Ashes: A Memoir [Frank McCourt, Brooke Zimmer, John Fontana] on desertcart.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Angela's Ashes: A Memoir

Review: A New Literary Classic- an amazing portrayal of real life in the raw - The best book I've read this year. If Neil Simon were to have written a novel it may have well looked like this book. A unique voice and style applying humor in all of the right ways for a reader to absorb the sad tragedy of growing up poor, Irish, and Catholic during the depression years, in America, and Ireland. Frank McCourt is able to overcome the pathos of his poignant, sad, and often disturbing memoir of growing up as the oldest son of a poor Irish Catholic family, through use of voice. In Angela’s Ashes, Frank McCourt presents his memoir though the limited first person view of a young boy. He creates comic relief in using the voice of a small child, as he grows up, first in New York, and then in Limerick, Ireland, during the time of the depression, and its aftermath. McCourt presents a tragic account of his family that would generally overwhelm any reader, unless presented through the eyes of a child, who often does not realize the hardship he has undergone, and whose innocent, limited view allows him (and the reader) to keep going. McCourt pushes the reader through the grief of near starvation, the upbringing by an alcoholic father, misguided mother, loss of younger siblings, and the stigma of growing up, poor, Irish, and Catholic, at a time when all three were considered an affliction, like some disease, rather than circumstance. He manages to hold the reader’s interest, without overwhelming her with pathos, by his character’s youthful voice, through artful dialogue, carefully crafted to allow the reader to see the lighter side of his tragic life. His choice of colloquial terms of endearment unique to the Irish of this era, calling his mother “Mam” instead of mom and using “Och” at the start of dialogue summary of the characters who likely had an Irish accent. In the very first paragraph, the author lets the voice of the narrator, pick up the easy ebb and flow of the Irish manner of speaking, and use of the vernacular of an American Irish immigrant, to recall his humble beginnings. “My father and mother should have stayed in New York where they met and married and where I was born. Instead, they returned to Ireland, when I was four, my brother, Malachy, three, the twins, Oliver and Eugene, barely one, and my sister, Margaret, dead and gone.” (McCourt, 11). The reader can almost picture an Irishman speaking as the story begins. McCort introduces comedy into his narrative voice, an older, more mature, man looking back on his life, when he recalls his father: Malachy McCourt, was born on a farm in Toome, County, Antrim. Like his father before, he grew up wild, in trouble with the English, or the Irish, or both. He fought with the Old IRA and for some desperate act he wound up a fugitive with a price on his head. [] When I was a child I would look at my father, the thinning hair, the collapsing teeth, and wonder why anyone would give money for a head like that. (McCourt, 12) This establishes the comic tone of the story through the voice of the character, recalling through his inner thoughts as a child, later through narrative summary, what he was told by his grandmother when he was thirteen; “as a wee lad, your poor father was dropped on his head. It was an accident, he was never the same after, and you must remember that people dropped on their heads can be a bit peculiar.” (McCourt, 12). This revelation becomes more humorous when the reader reconciles it with the story of how the grandmother’s brother, Patrick “Ab” Sheean, became retarded, after his alcoholic father dropped him on his head, when he was a baby. (McCourt, 13). Living with an alcoholic father, even one that is not necessarily abusive, can be a rather difficult subject matter for any reader to plow through, particularly where his alcoholism leave the family so impoverished that his family is near starvation, while he spends what little money on ale however, McCourt’s use of a limited first person view through a child’s eyes, the reader is given an account that is both tolerable, and sometimes funny. Here the voice of the child character portrays the tragic account of life in an impoverished alcoholic family with both catharsis, and humor. He uses word choices indicative of an Irish child, and through creative use of point of view, and method of speaking like a child, he says: When Dad gets a job Mam is cheerful and she sings, Anyone can see why I wanted your kiss, It had to be and the reason is this Could it be true, that someone like you Could love me, love me? When Dad brings home the first weeks wages, Mam is delighted, she can pay the lovely Italian man in the grocery shop and she can hold her head up again because there’s nothing worse in the world than to owe and be beholding to anyone. She cleans … she buys … and … on Friday night we know the weekend will be wonderful. … Mam will boil the water on the stove and wash us in the great tin tub and Dad will dry us. Malachy will turn around and show his behind. Dad will pretend to be shocked and we’ll all laugh …(but) when Dad’s job goes into the third week he does not bring home the wages… we know Mam won’t sing anymore one can see why I wanted your kiss. She sits at the kitchen table talking to herself… and Dad rolls up the stairs singing Roddy McCorley. [By the fourth week] Dad loses his job…(McCourt, 23-28). When his new baby sister, Margaret, dies, and his mother shuts down and stares at the wall, the use of a child’s voice enables the reader to somehow cope with the description of neglect of the other small children living in a roach infested apartment, with no food, and having to fend for themselves while their alcoholic father is still out at the pub. Later, when Oliver, one of the twins dies of pneumonia, followed by his brother, Eugene, McCourt’s use of his child’s voice, delivering death of his brothers, and baby sister Margaret into that child’s view that is both tolerable, and hopeful, despite the tears it brings to the reader’s eyes. Malachy and I are back in the bed where Eugene died. I hope he’s not cold in that white coffin in the graveyard though I know he’s not there anymore because angels come to the graveyard and open the coffin and he’s far from the Shannon (River) dampness that kills, up in the sky in heaven with Oliver and Margret where they have plenty of fish and chips and toffee and no aunts to bother you, where all the fathers bring home the money from the Labour Exchange and you don’t have to be running around to pubs to find them. (McCourt, 90). By using comic relief, McCourt is able to keep the reader from being too overwhelmed with pathos for the despair that so many tragic events, death, starvation, alcoholism, poverty and the disdain of insensitive people. He delivers the relief in the familiar family situations that bring smiles, along with the tears. Like when the mischievous brothers climb downstairs when their parents are sleeping and try on the false teeth that sit on the shelf by the sink, and Malachy is unable to remove his father’s big teeth from his mouth and has to go to the hospital. Although a near tragic event, McCourt is able to find the humor in the situation, and relay it to the reader in a believable child’s voice, telling the story. McCort’s portrayal of the family living upstairs in a house where they are unable to live downstairs because of the overwhelming odor from the sewage of many other families which is dumped near their front door, although not funny, is made humorous where the inspectors for the Saint Vincent De Paul Society are told by Malachy, still a child, that his family lives in “Italy” a term they have dubbed the upstairs part of the house where they live. (McCourt, 104). Additionally, when the grandmother stops talking to, and supporting the family, the tragic effect of this fact is reduced when the reason is provided in an anecdote where the main character reveals it was because he puked up God in her backyard after he came home from his first communion, (McCourt, 129), and where he had “God stuck to the roof of (his) mouth.” (McCourt, 128). The reader is compelled to laugh at the thoughts of a child, over a potentially touchy situation that interferes with the grandmother’s faith, and causes a serious rift in the family. Even when the main character’s mother lies dying, and he and his brothers are brought to their aunt’s house, McCourt creates a moment of levity to relive the reader of her heavy heart when he hears his fat aunt in the other room tinkling, and he is afraid to tell his brothers because he thinks they will all break out laughing: “at the picture in our heads of Aunt Aggie’s big white bum perched on a flowery little chamber pot.” (McCourt, 242). Later, when he delivers a message to an Englishman, is dragged into the house, forced to drink sherry and ends up puking on the rose bush belonging to the man’s wife, and is later dismissed from his job, where he is saving to go to America, the reader is spared the severe disappointment by the humor in the story, and a voice that keeps comic relief in everything it describes. (McCourt, 328-329). The book ends on a note of hilarity where the main character, on his way to America, is about to have sex, and a priest comes to his door. “The bad women bring out sandwiches and pour more beer and when we finish eating they put on Frank Sinatra records and ask if anyone would like to dance. No one says yes because you’d never get up and dance with bad women in the presence of a priest …” Despite all of his suffering, McCourt is as entertaining as his is hilarious. He has an enviable voice, Angela’s Ashes is a tribute to any mother’s memory. # __________________ McCourt, Frank. Angela’s Ashes. Scribner. New York. 1996.
Review: It made me laugh, cry, and ultimately feel grateful for the things that I have - Ireland in the 1930s and 1940s was a poor place. Their hate for the English had been simmering after centuries of oppression as the English extracted all the food and wealth from the smaller Irish nation and left the locals with nothing. Despite this reality, many Irishmen went to England for work and better wages. Frank McCourt’s father went, and instead of sending the money home to his wife and four kids, he spent it on the drink. With an absent father, his mother begged in the streets. She asked the local church for whatever they could spare and often came home empty handed. Without coal for the fire, the family spent many nights cold and hungry. She had seven children, four of whom survived to adulthood; the twins died at two and the lone baby girl didn’t make it six months. Her own mother hated her for marrying a man from North Ireland and having his children and never let her forget it. Her sister was bitter and selfish. Throughout his childhood, Frank McCourt was hungry all the time and his physical growth was stunted from malnutrition. Breadcrumbs were priceless. Many of his teeth were rotting and falling out of his mouth, he barely survived typhoid fever, and he lived many years of his life with an eye infection that gave him blurry vision. He had one set of clothes; the ones he was wearing. He slept under newspaper and used the walls of his house for firewood. He shared a bed with his family and also a family of fleas. He was beaten at school by his teachers for insubordination. Frank also loved to go to the cinema on the weekends and he gorged on toffees when he had an extra penny. He was proud to take care of his younger brothers when his mother and father could not. He loved to read, and had excellent hand writing—known as having a “fine fist.” Despite his bleak circumstances, he found opportunities to play. His writing is innocent, just like a young boy would be growing up in a confusing world, and as he relates his story, he comes across as a very curious youngster. However, asking questions of his elders was frowned upon, and he was often left to wonder about the mysteries of life. Mysteries like: why is my dad an alcoholic while others aren’t? is it a sin to steal food if I’m starving? and why did the twins die when they were only two years old? The book is captivating, heart-wrenching, and funny. It’s a great reminder that no matter how bad you think your life is, someone else’s life is harder, and even Frank McCourt’s story echo’s this sentiment: there were many families worse off than his. McCourt was lucky enough to have shoes while some kids went barefoot every day, even in the winter. He also had enough food to survive to adulthood. Other kids did not. Reading this book made me laugh, cry, and ultimately feel grateful for the things that I have.

## Features

- TOUCHSTONE
- 068484267X
- Angela's Ashes A Memoir

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | #17,000 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #4 in Emigrants & Immigrants Biographies #19 in Author Biographies #214 in Memoirs (Books) |
| Customer Reviews | 4.4 out of 5 stars 7,096 Reviews |

## Images

![Angela's Ashes: A Memoir - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81iy7dcfcUL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ A New Literary Classic- an amazing portrayal of real life in the raw
*by F***L on April 18, 2013*

The best book I've read this year. If Neil Simon were to have written a novel it may have well looked like this book. A unique voice and style applying humor in all of the right ways for a reader to absorb the sad tragedy of growing up poor, Irish, and Catholic during the depression years, in America, and Ireland. Frank McCourt is able to overcome the pathos of his poignant, sad, and often disturbing memoir of growing up as the oldest son of a poor Irish Catholic family, through use of voice. In Angela’s Ashes, Frank McCourt presents his memoir though the limited first person view of a young boy. He creates comic relief in using the voice of a small child, as he grows up, first in New York, and then in Limerick, Ireland, during the time of the depression, and its aftermath. McCourt presents a tragic account of his family that would generally overwhelm any reader, unless presented through the eyes of a child, who often does not realize the hardship he has undergone, and whose innocent, limited view allows him (and the reader) to keep going. McCourt pushes the reader through the grief of near starvation, the upbringing by an alcoholic father, misguided mother, loss of younger siblings, and the stigma of growing up, poor, Irish, and Catholic, at a time when all three were considered an affliction, like some disease, rather than circumstance. He manages to hold the reader’s interest, without overwhelming her with pathos, by his character’s youthful voice, through artful dialogue, carefully crafted to allow the reader to see the lighter side of his tragic life. His choice of colloquial terms of endearment unique to the Irish of this era, calling his mother “Mam” instead of mom and using “Och” at the start of dialogue summary of the characters who likely had an Irish accent. In the very first paragraph, the author lets the voice of the narrator, pick up the easy ebb and flow of the Irish manner of speaking, and use of the vernacular of an American Irish immigrant, to recall his humble beginnings. “My father and mother should have stayed in New York where they met and married and where I was born. Instead, they returned to Ireland, when I was four, my brother, Malachy, three, the twins, Oliver and Eugene, barely one, and my sister, Margaret, dead and gone.” (McCourt, 11). The reader can almost picture an Irishman speaking as the story begins. McCort introduces comedy into his narrative voice, an older, more mature, man looking back on his life, when he recalls his father: Malachy McCourt, was born on a farm in Toome, County, Antrim. Like his father before, he grew up wild, in trouble with the English, or the Irish, or both. He fought with the Old IRA and for some desperate act he wound up a fugitive with a price on his head. [] When I was a child I would look at my father, the thinning hair, the collapsing teeth, and wonder why anyone would give money for a head like that. (McCourt, 12) This establishes the comic tone of the story through the voice of the character, recalling through his inner thoughts as a child, later through narrative summary, what he was told by his grandmother when he was thirteen; “as a wee lad, your poor father was dropped on his head. It was an accident, he was never the same after, and you must remember that people dropped on their heads can be a bit peculiar.” (McCourt, 12). This revelation becomes more humorous when the reader reconciles it with the story of how the grandmother’s brother, Patrick “Ab” Sheean, became retarded, after his alcoholic father dropped him on his head, when he was a baby. (McCourt, 13). Living with an alcoholic father, even one that is not necessarily abusive, can be a rather difficult subject matter for any reader to plow through, particularly where his alcoholism leave the family so impoverished that his family is near starvation, while he spends what little money on ale however, McCourt’s use of a limited first person view through a child’s eyes, the reader is given an account that is both tolerable, and sometimes funny. Here the voice of the child character portrays the tragic account of life in an impoverished alcoholic family with both catharsis, and humor. He uses word choices indicative of an Irish child, and through creative use of point of view, and method of speaking like a child, he says: When Dad gets a job Mam is cheerful and she sings, Anyone can see why I wanted your kiss, It had to be and the reason is this Could it be true, that someone like you Could love me, love me? When Dad brings home the first weeks wages, Mam is delighted, she can pay the lovely Italian man in the grocery shop and she can hold her head up again because there’s nothing worse in the world than to owe and be beholding to anyone. She cleans … she buys … and … on Friday night we know the weekend will be wonderful. … Mam will boil the water on the stove and wash us in the great tin tub and Dad will dry us. Malachy will turn around and show his behind. Dad will pretend to be shocked and we’ll all laugh …(but) when Dad’s job goes into the third week he does not bring home the wages… we know Mam won’t sing anymore one can see why I wanted your kiss. She sits at the kitchen table talking to herself… and Dad rolls up the stairs singing Roddy McCorley. [By the fourth week] Dad loses his job…(McCourt, 23-28). When his new baby sister, Margaret, dies, and his mother shuts down and stares at the wall, the use of a child’s voice enables the reader to somehow cope with the description of neglect of the other small children living in a roach infested apartment, with no food, and having to fend for themselves while their alcoholic father is still out at the pub. Later, when Oliver, one of the twins dies of pneumonia, followed by his brother, Eugene, McCourt’s use of his child’s voice, delivering death of his brothers, and baby sister Margaret into that child’s view that is both tolerable, and hopeful, despite the tears it brings to the reader’s eyes. Malachy and I are back in the bed where Eugene died. I hope he’s not cold in that white coffin in the graveyard though I know he’s not there anymore because angels come to the graveyard and open the coffin and he’s far from the Shannon (River) dampness that kills, up in the sky in heaven with Oliver and Margret where they have plenty of fish and chips and toffee and no aunts to bother you, where all the fathers bring home the money from the Labour Exchange and you don’t have to be running around to pubs to find them. (McCourt, 90). By using comic relief, McCourt is able to keep the reader from being too overwhelmed with pathos for the despair that so many tragic events, death, starvation, alcoholism, poverty and the disdain of insensitive people. He delivers the relief in the familiar family situations that bring smiles, along with the tears. Like when the mischievous brothers climb downstairs when their parents are sleeping and try on the false teeth that sit on the shelf by the sink, and Malachy is unable to remove his father’s big teeth from his mouth and has to go to the hospital. Although a near tragic event, McCourt is able to find the humor in the situation, and relay it to the reader in a believable child’s voice, telling the story. McCort’s portrayal of the family living upstairs in a house where they are unable to live downstairs because of the overwhelming odor from the sewage of many other families which is dumped near their front door, although not funny, is made humorous where the inspectors for the Saint Vincent De Paul Society are told by Malachy, still a child, that his family lives in “Italy” a term they have dubbed the upstairs part of the house where they live. (McCourt, 104). Additionally, when the grandmother stops talking to, and supporting the family, the tragic effect of this fact is reduced when the reason is provided in an anecdote where the main character reveals it was because he puked up God in her backyard after he came home from his first communion, (McCourt, 129), and where he had “God stuck to the roof of (his) mouth.” (McCourt, 128). The reader is compelled to laugh at the thoughts of a child, over a potentially touchy situation that interferes with the grandmother’s faith, and causes a serious rift in the family. Even when the main character’s mother lies dying, and he and his brothers are brought to their aunt’s house, McCourt creates a moment of levity to relive the reader of her heavy heart when he hears his fat aunt in the other room tinkling, and he is afraid to tell his brothers because he thinks they will all break out laughing: “at the picture in our heads of Aunt Aggie’s big white bum perched on a flowery little chamber pot.” (McCourt, 242). Later, when he delivers a message to an Englishman, is dragged into the house, forced to drink sherry and ends up puking on the rose bush belonging to the man’s wife, and is later dismissed from his job, where he is saving to go to America, the reader is spared the severe disappointment by the humor in the story, and a voice that keeps comic relief in everything it describes. (McCourt, 328-329). The book ends on a note of hilarity where the main character, on his way to America, is about to have sex, and a priest comes to his door. “The bad women bring out sandwiches and pour more beer and when we finish eating they put on Frank Sinatra records and ask if anyone would like to dance. No one says yes because you’d never get up and dance with bad women in the presence of a priest …” Despite all of his suffering, McCourt is as entertaining as his is hilarious. He has an enviable voice, Angela’s Ashes is a tribute to any mother’s memory. # __________________ McCourt, Frank. Angela’s Ashes. Scribner. New York. 1996.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ It made me laugh, cry, and ultimately feel grateful for the things that I have
*by C***N on October 28, 2025*

Ireland in the 1930s and 1940s was a poor place. Their hate for the English had been simmering after centuries of oppression as the English extracted all the food and wealth from the smaller Irish nation and left the locals with nothing. Despite this reality, many Irishmen went to England for work and better wages. Frank McCourt’s father went, and instead of sending the money home to his wife and four kids, he spent it on the drink. With an absent father, his mother begged in the streets. She asked the local church for whatever they could spare and often came home empty handed. Without coal for the fire, the family spent many nights cold and hungry. She had seven children, four of whom survived to adulthood; the twins died at two and the lone baby girl didn’t make it six months. Her own mother hated her for marrying a man from North Ireland and having his children and never let her forget it. Her sister was bitter and selfish. Throughout his childhood, Frank McCourt was hungry all the time and his physical growth was stunted from malnutrition. Breadcrumbs were priceless. Many of his teeth were rotting and falling out of his mouth, he barely survived typhoid fever, and he lived many years of his life with an eye infection that gave him blurry vision. He had one set of clothes; the ones he was wearing. He slept under newspaper and used the walls of his house for firewood. He shared a bed with his family and also a family of fleas. He was beaten at school by his teachers for insubordination. Frank also loved to go to the cinema on the weekends and he gorged on toffees when he had an extra penny. He was proud to take care of his younger brothers when his mother and father could not. He loved to read, and had excellent hand writing—known as having a “fine fist.” Despite his bleak circumstances, he found opportunities to play. His writing is innocent, just like a young boy would be growing up in a confusing world, and as he relates his story, he comes across as a very curious youngster. However, asking questions of his elders was frowned upon, and he was often left to wonder about the mysteries of life. Mysteries like: why is my dad an alcoholic while others aren’t? is it a sin to steal food if I’m starving? and why did the twins die when they were only two years old? The book is captivating, heart-wrenching, and funny. It’s a great reminder that no matter how bad you think your life is, someone else’s life is harder, and even Frank McCourt’s story echo’s this sentiment: there were many families worse off than his. McCourt was lucky enough to have shoes while some kids went barefoot every day, even in the winter. He also had enough food to survive to adulthood. Other kids did not. Reading this book made me laugh, cry, and ultimately feel grateful for the things that I have.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ A crazy read!
*by C***N on January 1, 2026*

This book was hard to finish, but I made it. The entire book is in first person about the author, a young boy, Frankie, growing up in the poorest spots of Ireland. Seems as though from day 1 he was knocked around, smacked, shoved, generally physically abused from everyone in his life. No love came from anywhere. The writing seemed like one long paragraph. I don’t understand how Frank McCourt made it to adulthood and achieved such glory.

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