Frank McCourt’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book looks back at his childhood. It is the coming-of-age* story of the author.
The story begins in America with 4-year-old Frank, his 3-year-old brother Malachy, who has the same name as his father, the baby twins, Eugene and Oliver, and the memories of baby Margaret, “already dead and gone.”
His mother Angela has no money to feed* her children since Frank’s father rarely* works. When he does, he drinks his wages away. But Angela would sing to her children at night, giving them hope that one day there would be enough food and happiness for everyone. Your heart goes out to the poor family.
Then the family moves to Ireland with help from Frank’s aunts and grandmother. However, money is not easily found in Ireland either, and the McCourt family moves from home to home.
It is a story of how Frank endures* — wearing shoes repaired with tires*, begging for a pig’s head for Christmas dinner, and searching the pubs* for his father.
He has a romance with a young lady named Theresa Carmody sick with consumption*. When he gets drunk for the first time, he strikes his own mother and deeply regrets it.
Despite all the terrible things that happen in Frank’s childhood, there are moments that give the reader a sense of joy and hope.
After Angela’s dreams of raising a healthy family with a supportive* husband have turned into ashes, Frank grows to learn that he must take on the responsibility* of keeping his own dreams alive. At the end of the book, he leaves his broken family behind to make himself whole again in America. (SD-Agencies)
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