'Tis: A Memoir | Frank McCourt

'Tis: A Memoir | Frank McCourt | The Further Adventures of Frank McCourt

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'Tis: A Memoir

	'Tis: A Memoir Frank McCourt Scribner, 2000 - 368 pages average customer review:based on 591 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Coming to America

I had "Tis" on my shelf for several years before I could get myself to read it. Angela's Ashes, the story of author Frank McCourt's early life, was a harrowing, powerful book that kept me going, hoping for something good to happen. Nothing good did happen except that the author survived to adulthood.

Tis is a completely different kind of story, and I would recommend that it can be read separately from Angela's Ashes. It's a very personal tale of an Irishman coming to America and trying to make his way. Our parents and grandparents might have had similar experiences (boarding houses, low end jobs, sending money home), but they would never tell you about how it felt in the same immediate and unflinching way as McCourt does. There's pain mixed with humor, because this is a survivor's story.

McCourt's Irishness is a double-edged sword. It opens doors for him from the first page as an American priest befriends him on the boat and lines him up for a job on arrival. But as he tries to assimilate, people only hear his accent and not what he has to say. The title, "'tis" is how he responds over and over again to people who ask "Is that a brogue I hear?". I believe McCourt chose that as the title to exemplify how he had to go along to get along in his new country. The writing is fantastic, a herky-jerky style that reflects a young man's bursts of energy and sudden halts. Like Angela's Ashes, the story sort of trails off at the end, but that's a minor quibble for such a well-written book. I am more motivated to read the sequel, "Teacher Man" than I was to read this one!

As our country struggles to absorb a new flood of immigrants, this tale is worth reading to gain insight into what it's like to try to make a new life in a foreign place.

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The Further Adventures of Frank McCourt

`TIS is the continuing story of author Frank McCourt's life that he began telling in ANGELA'S ASHES; a dark, moving, and humorous memoir about his life growing up in Limerick, Ireland. That book netted McCourt a host of awards, including the Pulitzer Prize, and ended with McCourt's return to America. `TIS begins right where ANGELA'S ASHES ended. The story tells about McCourt's early adventures in the United States, his service in the military, his return visits to Ireland, his first marriage, the arrival of his brothers and mother to the United States, and some brief tales about his life as an English teacher.

`TIS really is a companion piece and though the book makes some very keen observations about society and culture, the book is written in McCourt's darkly humorous witty style and doesn't stand very well on its own. You can read `TIS by itself, but the book reads better if you've already read ANGELA'S ASHES and are acquainted with McCourt's writing style and his tragic childhood. For example, there are many allusions and references made to things McCourt examined in ANGELA'S ASHES.

`TIS hasn't been as popular as ANGELA'S ASHES. That was bound to happen. ANGELA'S ASHES was a tremendous success and people couldn't believe that McCourt had never written a book before. It won many, many awards and rightly so. `TIS continues the story, but because it's the story of a man finding his place in the world and not that of a child struggling to survive, it doesn't seem as powerful. I really enjoyed `TIS. I knew before I began reading it that it wasn't going to the same story again. To paraphrase THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION, life keeps moving on and you either get moving too, or you might as well die. Therefore, I wasn't as disappointed as many readers were by `TIS. I found it a delight to read and was pretty much what I expected. I hope McCourt lives for many more years and writes several more books.

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'Tis

"`Tis," an Autobiography of Frank McCourt's life, tells how he made his way in life as a young immigrant living in New York. It also explains how he survived the chaos and mayhem without much money or family. Yet it also tells of his struggle to get through the army, how he learned to write and then explains his way through college. Written with passion and full of memory, "`Tis" is an outstanding book that is recommended for any young person about to go on their own in the world. Frank McCourt wrote this book as a sequel to Angela's Ashes, which is an autobiography about Frank's life as a child in Ireland. Full of twists, drama, deaths and love, "`Tis" should be on everyone's top ten list of books to buy. After he wrote this book he wrote "Teacher Man" which is a summary of his life as a teacher and how it changed his life and who he thought he was going to be. -Daniel Archuleta

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Excellent

This is a great book. Not as good as Angela's Ashes but if you reade the first you will want to read this one.

'Twas a dissapointment

The memory of the sheer enjoyment I had in reading Angela's Ashes slowly and painstakingly became dissipated as I plodded through `Tis.

`Twas it because the author in Angela's Ashes was in and remained in, the child-perspective zone while writing A.A. and in `Tis was writing in the grown-up-perspective zone? `Twas it that in Angela's Ashes there was a central theme, which I would call `suffering' and in `Tis I could detect no central theme; even the suffering was gone? `Twas it because in America the author had it too good? `Twas it that the abundance of humanity in A.A. had vanished in `Tis? `Twas it that as author you can only once mourn the loss of your mother by writing A.A. and then there is nothing left to write? 'Twas it that in the process of integrating into a new country he needed to lose contact with his own roots? `Twas it....

I think the author is a child at heart and that's where he feels free to express himself. I think at that place lies his great creativity and in particular his monumental and unforgettable work, Angela's Ashes. Angela's Ashes made me feel young again. Thank you Mr. McCourt.

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