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Book Description

Frank McCourt's glorious childhood memoir, Angela's Ashes, has been loved and celebrated by readers everywhere for its spirit, its wit, and its profound humanity. It won the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Award, and the Pulitzer Prize. And now we have 'Tis, the story of Frank's American journey from impoverished immigrant to brilliant teacher and raconteur. The same vulnerable but invincible spirit that captured the hearts of readers in Angela's Ashes comes of age. Frank McCourt's 'Tis is one of the most eagerly awaited books of our time, and it is a masterpiece.

Amazon.com

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 with the same dark humor 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, set in a Limerick graveyard.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　--Wendy Smith

Amazon.com Audiobook Review

'Tis a blessing that the author narrates his own work. McCourt follows up his Audie Award-winning performance in Angela's Ashes with another brilliant reading as he chronicles his return to post-World War II New York. Like all good storytellers, McCourt has good stories to tell; 'Tis pulses with grim adversity and quiet triumphs--character-shaping moments that gain the listener's empathy. What makes McCourt a great storyteller is his ability to give these moments just the right amount of humor and perspective. His lyrical tones are wise but not weary; he's survived life's challenges to tell his tale. And while it may be trite to credit McCourt's verbal skills to his Irish heritage, these war stories were undoubtedly polished amongst friends in the pubs. 'Tis is Grammy material, and a perfect example of how an author's voice can enhance the written word. (Running time: 6 hours, 4 cassettes)

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　--Rob McDonald

From Publishers Weekly

The appeal of McCourt as a reader of his own memoirs (Angela's Ashes flourished commercially on audio, in both abridged and unabridged formats) lies in his ability to express a sustained sense of wonder at the world around him. Also, his brogue is classic, an Irish species unto itself. Here he takes up where he left off in his last book, arriving in America. He is first guided by an Irish bartender who tells him to go to the New York Public Library and read Samuel Johnson. Thus assimilated, he becomes a supply clerk for the army, stationed in postwar Germany, then a warehouse laborer living in a rooming house, before earning a college degree at NYU and settling down as a teacher at a rowdy vocational high school in Staten Island. Along the way come romance and immigrant's-eye life observations aplenty, and a growing sense of knowingness develops even as McCourt's hopes are dashed against disillusions. Simultaneous release with the Scribner hardcover. Also available unabridged and on CD. (Sept.)

From Library Journal

'Tis, the sequel to Angela's Ashes, furthers the story of McCourt, beginning with his arrival in America in 1949 at the age of 19. Continuing the tough life he had in Ireland, he also finds it difficult to make a living in New York. His first job is as a busboy at the Biltmore Hotel, where he admires and envies the young folks he serves, with their college educations and comfortable lives. After floating from one dead-end job to another, he joins the army during the Korean War, where he learns to type--a skill that helps him when he returns to civilian life. McCourt narrates his story with the same biting awareness and lyrical turn of phrase that are the hallmarks of his previous book. Despite a sluggish start and an initial tendency toward whininess, McCourt captures once again the drudgery, cruelty, and hardships poor people face; his insight into the human soul is remarkable. A masterful storyteller, McCourt has an Irish brogue that makes this an enchanting listening experience. Highly recommended for all libraries.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　-Gloria Maxwell, Penn Valley Community Coll., Kansas City, MO

From Booklist

The second installment in McCourt's fluent and bewitchingly candid memoir will be eagerly embraced by a reading public madly in love with the first, the award-winning and best-selling Angela's Ashes (1996). Here McCourt, still simultaneously voluble and precise, chronicles his return to New York, the city of his birth. A high-school dropout with a thick brogue, terrible teeth and skin, and red and infected eyes, he is easy pickings for a priest who helps him get settled, then attempts to molest him. This distressing introduction to the perversity of life in America kicks off an almost unbelievable series of humiliations and hardships as McCourt works soul-crushingly menial jobs for pittance and is confronted both with vicious anti-Irish prejudice and tedious Irish pride--nearly everyone he meets recounts their Irish genealogy and tells him to stick to his own kind. McCourt stubbornly dreams of becoming a teacher and writer but often retreats from the demands of college and work into the comforting haze of alcohol, the bane of his family. Finally, after a stint in the army and years of being mocked for his bookish ways, he succeeds in becoming a teacher, and his riveting accounts of his crazy classroom experiences in a Staten Island vocational high school at the height of McCarthyism are not to be missed. His family is present, too, of course. His mother, Angela, remains depressed even under her sons' solicitous care. His father is impossible right up to the day he dies, and McCourt's brothers, Malachy (who has also written a memoir) and Mike, live "bright carefree" lives, while he does everything the hard way, the only way he knows how, and, frankly, the only approach to life he fully respects.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 Donna Seaman

From AudioFile

Leaving Limerick, "the city of gray miseries," behind, Frank McCourt picks up his family story, started in ANGELA'S ASHES , on board the boat to America in 1949. McCourt is a consummate storyteller, interweaving his wry sense of absurdity to leaven the misfortunes and unhappiness that plague the McCourt family. America, the promised land, is fraught with trials for the newly arrived immigrant. McCourt's direct writing style and engaging delivery make this a treat for listeners. Punctuated by soulful fiddle tunes, the abridgment is better developed in McCourt's early years in New York, moving quickly through the last few years before the McCourt sons actually spread Angela's ashes in the Limerick graveyard in 1985. Frank McCourt said in an interview after recording 'TIS that he never anticipated a sequel to ANGELA'S ASHES, nor does he feel that one needs to read, or listen to, the earlier book. This is modesty, perhaps, because 'TIS is an American immigrant's story without the dream that is the brilliant focus and redemption of ANGELA'S ASHES. McCourt seems fully absorbed in the parts of 'TIS that touch on earlier years and have the luminous humanity that distinguish the earlier book. ANGELA is available on audio, in both unabridged and abridged formats, and having McCourt read it to you is an ultimate treat. An interesting production note on this recording--the abridgment was edited from the full-length text. McCourt worked in the Simon & Schuster studios with producer/director Karen Frillman to record the entire work. Mindful of the transitions needed to produce the edited version, Frillman was able to suggest and adjust the segues needed to keep the abridgment smooth and fluid. R.F.W.

From Kirkus Reviews

While not as tightly structured as his Pulitzer Prizewinning Angela's Ashes (1996), the irrepressible McCourt's follow-up memoir has the same driving rhythm, charm, and infectious humor that so captivated readers of the earlier installment. The story picks up in 1949 as McCourt, aged 19, sails to America to seek his fortune. Befriended by a priest who helps him settle in New York City, he's shocked when the man makes a drunken pass at him. His life in New York becomes one of seedy boarding houses, menial labor on the docks and warehouses, and, always, heavy drinking, often with his brothers Malachy and Michael. Conditionally admitted to New York University (he had no high school diploma), he's thrilled to show off his textbooks on the subway but bored with the class work. He'd rather read Sean O'Casey, ``the first Irish writer I ever read who writes about rags, dirt, hunger, babies dying. . . . '' He falls in love with and eventually marries Alberta ``Mike'' Small, a beautiful Episcopalian from New England. It's a marriage that will ``become a sustained squabble.'' His early years as a high school teacher, first at a vocational school on Staten Island, later at the prestigious Stuyvesant High School, are humorously and revealingly retold. His first words as a teacher? ``Stop throwing sandwiches.'' McCourt occasionally interrupts his chronological narrative with lengthy, if funny, portraits of characters he's met along the way. Angela, who has moved back to New York to be near her sons, has become a difficult, sickly woman upon whose death McCourt would write: ``I thought I'd know the grief of the grown man. . . . I didn't know I'd feel like a child cheated.'' Those whose hearts went out to the little boy who suffered so in Limerick might be put off by the hard-drinking, carousing grownup. But there's no denying McCourt's engaging wit. Is it as rewarding as Angela's Ashes? `Tis. (First serial to the New Yorker; Literary Guild main selection; author tour)

Book Dimension

length: (cm)17.1 　　　 　　　　　 　　　　　 width:(cm)10.4