Pete Hamill in awe of Frank McCourt's 'Angela's Ashes'

Hamill: This ferocious book will still be read when all of us are gone

This is told with great good humor and affection for human weakness. Faced with marriage, Frank’s father borrowed money to escape to California; he got drunk instead and wound up on a bench in the station of the Long Island Railroad, the money gone, his life permanently changed.

There is affection too, for life, as Frank McCourt remembers it, in the tenement on Classon Avenue, the arrival of little Malachy, trips to the playground, the good heart of a Jewish neighbor, the birth of a sister named Margaret. And then he introduces, in an indirect way, the great chilly presence that haunts this book. Little Malachy is playing in front of the house when a dog is hit by a car. Malachy tries to help the dog and gets blood all over him. A neighbor tries to explain it to Malachy:

“She tells me the poor wee dog was hit by a car and he crawled all the way from the middle of the street before he died. Wanted to come home, the poor wee creature.”

This is the first of many deaths in this death-haunted book. In brilliantly realized prose, McCourt retrieves from memory the process of coming to consciousness. And death is crucial to the process. As the Depression worsens, poverty becomes a texture of daily life. Now twins are born. McCourt’s memory does not edit the story into sentimentality:

“We have to stay in the playground because the twins are sleeping and my mother says she’s worn out. Go out and play, she says, and give me some rest. Dad is out looking for a job again and sometimes he comes home with the smell of whiskey, singing all the songs about suffering Ireland. Mam gets angry and says Ireland can kiss her arse. He says that’s nice language to be using in front of the children and she says never mind the language, food on the table is what she wants, not suffering Ireland…”

Angela’s mood rises and falls with the father’s ability to put food on the table. He brings home money, and her mood is bright; she washes, cleans, sings a romantic ballad from her youth with a refrain that says, “Anyone can see why I wanted your kiss.” Most of the time, her mood falls into desperation, sorrow, indolence and inertia. The father brings home nothing, except his drunken commands to the older boys to die for Ireland, his songs about Roddy McCorley and Kevin Barry, and his tales of mighty Cuchulainn. Then a girl, Margaret, is born.

“We all love Margaret. She has black curly hair and blue eyes like Mam and she waves her little hands and chirps like any little bird in the trees along Classon Avenue. Minnie says there was a holiday in heaven the day this child was made. Mrs. Leibowitz says the world never saw such eyes, such a smile, such happiness. She makes me dance, says Mrs. Leibowitz.”

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Nster.com