OLDEST IRISH AMERICAN NEWSPAPER IN USA, ESTABLISHED IN 1928
Category: Archive

Frank McCourt

February 17, 2011

By Staff Reporter

That’s not an easy thing to pull off. Fame has its ways, as we all know, and many simply can’t handle it.
Frank McCourt could handle fame as if he was born to it, though his early life would scarcely hint at such a future.
A humble beginning in Brooklyn begat an even humbler upbringing in Limerick.
Frank lived to the reasonably grand age of 78 after being lucky to make it to eight. He had much to be thankful for then. And so had the rest of us, fans of his work, and otherwise.
When “Angela’s Ashes” stormed the bestseller list in the mid 1990s there was uproar amid the uproarious.
The book struck both a chord and a raw nerve. It mesmerized millions of readers and utterly infuriated others to the point that there was, at one point, a threat to hold a book burning event with copies of Angela’s Ashes being reduced to, well, ashes.
That didn’t happen, but all the publicity, hoopla, praise and criticism were grist for McCourt’s considerable mill.
He took it on board like the kid who had survived those lanes of Limerick he had simultaneously made famous and infamous. The man was made of stern stuff. He had to be given his years teaching in New York City. No task for the meek, that.
McCourt’s literary success came amid what many regarded as an Irish cultural renaissance which circled the globe and cropped up in the most unusual and unlikely places during the 1990s.
New York wasn’t unlikely of course, it being a front rank city for the global Irish Diaspora.
McCourt was already known in New York literary circles as a man of words and ideas, not least because of his stage show performed with his brother and fellow raconteur, Malachy.
“Angela’s Ashes” would be a standout during the renaissance for the simple reason that it went against the grain, that being a seemingly never-ending flow of praise for all things bright, beautiful and Irish.
The Ireland of McCourt’s childhood was not the prettiest of pictures so, in the hands of such a skilled writer, the end result was always going to shock many, even as it held them in thrall.
The Pulitzer Prize followed huge sales. Then there was the movie and two other books that didn’t quite match the originality and success of the first, but nevertheless advanced McCourt’s progress on the road to literary Valhalla.
Many authors write and disappear, J.D. Salinger being the classic example. But Frank McCourt was a born performer, a teacher who all of a sudden found himself facing a worldwide classroom.
He might have bolted. But he was generous, with his time, his energy and his encouragement. An astonishing number of writers can point to the praising words of Frank McCourt on their book covers.
Frank’s wit walked with him to the end. His attachment to Limerick, despite those hard times so long ago, clearly remained. He wants his ashes scattered on the Shannon so that he can, as he put it, pollute it.
Hardly. Frank McCourt’s ashes will only enrich the great river flowing by those bygone lanes of Limerick.

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