Derek Neveu’s Reviews > Angela’s Ashes > Status Update

The end is nigh, but what a depressing ride this has been. I couldn’t imagine living this existence, much alone revisiting it through memories and autobiographical writing.

I still shudder at what a delinquent father Frank’s father was, but this chapter helped explain why he didn’t completely dismiss him. Looking at his father as if he had a trinity within him and only one third of the trinity was bad, did shed light on not only why Frank didn’t outright dismiss his father, but also why most of us find the silver lining of grace in the flawed ones we love in our lives.

Frank’s father is the worst! I understand the conflicting feelings one can have when you love someone so much who at every turn betrays you, and I understand how helpless Frank must feel. However, as a father, I can never understand how you can be so selfish while your family, your children, live in squalor and suffer. If Hell is real, I feel that it is a fitting place for that man.

It’s been a slow go reading multiple books, but McCourt’s account of his First Communion made me laugh, because even though I grew up in a much less religiously oppressive environment, there were so many juvenile concerns about receiving the sacrament that I related to on a personal level. I also loved his “sins”, because what young Catholic didn’t go into confession with their preordained and stock sins?

I struggle to believe that his father is real, he’s such a degenerate and a detriment to the McCourt family. The fact that Frank was able to take these bits of coal from his childhood and press them into a diamond is amazing!

It’s troubling how poorly misplaced Frank’s father’s pride is. He finds shame in doing anything to help his constantly pregnant wife and his malnourished and impoverished children, yet at the same time, he has no shame when it comes to going on the dole and sneaking away to spend what little money they have on pints at the pub!

Just when you come to terms with a father’s consistent neglect and the loss of a child, McCourt hits you in the face with another. Such a painful memoir to read as a dad, because while I don’t think I know all the answers, there are so many times I want to reach in the book, pull Malachy’s ass out of the pub, and tell him to go home to his wife and children!

Having two young kids of my own, the first chapter is heartbreaking. The level of neglect on all fronts is astounding, and the fact that Frank is alive to tell this somber tale is nothing less than a miracle. Not sure what I was looking for with this read, but so far a spiritual uplifting experience it is not.