I’m sure this week there will likely be a rush of writers eulogizing Frank McCourt in words more eloquent than mine. I feel that I have the upper hand because unlike many of them, I had the privilege of meeting him in person and telling him to his face what I’m about to tell you.

Simply put, I picked up a pen because of McCourt. I told him how I marveled over his simple yet highly effective choice of words in Angela’s Ashes; how brilliant I thought the use of run on sentences was to create a childlike narrative essential in this child’s recounting his hellish childhood, and how the voice that sprung from the written word haunted me for weeks after I finished the last page.

I told him that he made it all look so simple that I was convinced that I could do a better job, and within days of finishing the book I began work on my own. 

Of course, the way he arranged those simple words won him a Pulitzer and the skill needed to do that was something I didn’t have an appreciation for until my editor made me rewrite my novel "Collared" for the third time, but that’s another story.

What’s important here is that McCourt awakened the writer in me, and when I met him face to face during an interview to coincide with the release of his Teacher Man novel, I choked on those words like a tongue-tied school girl.

Frank just nodded appreciatively as I rattled on. He seemed almost uncomfortable with praise of any kind, waving his hand.

“You probably would have found that writer inside of you without my help eventually,” he replied dismissively. We Irish can toot our own horn better than any other race, which made this bone of deep humility all the more disarming.

Alas, I am literally the only member of my family that is a fan of Frank McCourt, and the very mention of his name sparks a huge debate over every holiday dinner. My mother is around his age and grew up in Co. Limerick as well, and she thought Angela’s Ashes was a “vile collection of lies.”

 “The way he talked about his parents and aired the family laundry was shameful,” one aunt would say.

Mindful of that, my first question to Frank during our interview pulled no punches:

“So, Frank, my mother says that Angela’s Ashes is a crock of lies and utter s***e. What would you say to her if she were here?”

“I would tell her that this is my reality and not hers,” he said without missing a beat. “It’s funny, but I get that a lot from people have been over here in America for 40 or 50 years. The longer they are out of Ireland, the more romantic their notion of how their upbringing was. 

“They forget that the dampness of the Shannon, the long, cold existence with very little joy to be had. This confronts their romantic notion, and I understand that. I think that’s what I would ask your mother to reflect on. “

I’ll never forget his deadpan delivery, and his comment made me think of a quote from Bono: “Great writing doesn’t heal, it picks at a scab.”

For millions of Irish of a certain age, Angela’s Ashes ripped the soothing warmth of the Aran sweater off of their collective quaint memories of the auld sod, and I could see in the anguished faces of my older relatives that this was a less than pleasurable experience.

For younger folks it was a story, nothing more or nothing less.

For me, life changed forever after reading Frank McCourt’s words, and I thank him from the bottom of my heart for being an agent of transformation. May he rest in peace.