A Moving Memoir

A couple of days ago I read a memoir for the library summer reading challenge.  It was very moving and really changed my perspective on my own personal day to day struggles.  This book is about the author, Frank McCourt, and his experience of growing up in Ireland from 1930s-1940s.  His father was almost always drunk and the family is always on the brink of starvation.  This memoir is unique in that it doesn't contain the appropriate quotation marks which might bother people.  I know it bothers me when I read a Cormac McCarthy book a couple years ago, but I would encourage you to give this book a try.  I highly recommended it.  It caused me to be so grateful for the life I live now and my own growing up years.  This book is also mostly written in the voice of a child which really shed light on so many things that kids can see that seem so hypocritical and at the end of the day it is.  Which brings us to the Catholic church.  McCourt doesn't appear to look very kindly on the church which shut the door on him 3 times in his life and he observed the Brothers living a life of fair easy while he went without regular meals, shoes, coats, or proper bedding.  I am a bit surprised that McCourt was not quite as bitter about his father's constant drinking and he basically ended up abandoning his family.  His father had some real demons and lived with so much prejudice because he was from the North of Ireland.  But honestly many of the women in this book are not a whole lot better.  At least his mother, Angela, does try to keep the family together and she takes them to the doctor (but usually only when she is absolutely desperate).  Angela's mother is plan mean and bitter as well as Angela's sister.  The only really helpful women were the ones in the very beginning.  This book says so much about human perseverance and it is one of those books that makes you think- "My life isn't so bad."  I highly recommend.   

At one point of the book Angela has pneumonia and she is constantly asking her boys to get her lemonade.  It made me thirsty for lemonade.  It was also a nice summer day.  It was a great pairing.