Great Irish-American Memoirist, Frank McCourt, Dies

Frank McCourt, who wrote the bestsellers Angela's Ashes and 'Tis died this weekend. Read the NYT article here.

I read these books back in early unversity, probably 2001-2002. Angela's Ashes was well-deserving of its Pulitzer. It was beautifully-written in a nearly tangible prose. You could almost taste the lilting Irish accent in his words.

McCourt was born in Limerick and moved to New York. Both Ireland and New York are places I've visited in the past few years, though both are very different than the places he writes about in the 1930s-1950s.

The Ireland I lived in is so beautiful and was at the peak of the huge economic boom the Celtic Tiger brought. Half the population was under 30 and Dublin was a sea of new immigrants from around the globe. This in contrast to the poverty-stricken place McCourt grew up in, but remnants of that life remained in the attitudes of the Irish I met. Being one generation removed from that sort of third-world life meant a lot of baby-steps in their society that I was fortunate to observe first-hand.

I enjoyed McCourt's writings on Ireland more than his later New York years, but all his works are enjoyable. Angela's Ashes is a bucket-list read, in my opinion. And don't bother with the movie. While I love Robert Carlyle (Begbie in Trainspotting, duh.), it's not enough to really chew on. Something about the Irish and their preponderance for fantastic writing. But that's for another blog post.