Frank McCourt

Francis "Frank" McCourt was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Irish immigrant parents. Unable to find work in the depths of the Depression the McCourts returned to Ireland, where they sunk deeper into poverty McCourt describes so movingly in his memior, Angela's Ashes.



Biographical Information
McCourt's father, an alcoholic, was often without work. He drank up what little money he earned and eventually abandoned the family altogether. Three of the seven children died of diseases aggravated by malnutrition and the squalor of their surroundings. Frank McCourt himself nearly died of typhoid fever when he was ten. McCourt's memoir describes an entire block of houses sharing a single outhouse, ground floor dwellings flooded by constant rain, a home infested with rats and vermin. Despite the horrors of McCourt's childhood, he told his story with humor, brilliant description, and deep compassion for his family, even for the shiftless father who instilled in him a love of language and storytelling.

After quitting school at 13, Frank McCourt alternated between odd jobs and petty crime in an effort to feed himself, his mother, and three surviving brothers. At 19, he returned to the United States and worked at odd jobs until he was drafted into the United States Army at the onset of the Korean War. McCourt spent the war stationed in Germany and on his return to civilian life was able to pursue a college education on the G.I. Bill. Although he had never attended high school, he was able to persuade the admissions office of New York University to accept him as a student. Although his childhood interest in language and storytelling were fed by creative writing classes and his own constant reading, he did not feel ready to pursue a career as a professional writer. On graduation, he went to work for the New York City Public School system, where he taught for the next 27 years.

Career
Sources for Career Information
 * Early Career
 * In October 1949 at the age of nineteen he left Ireland on the MS Irish Oak that was supposed to stop in New York City but instead went up to Albany, NY. He took a train into New York City with a priest he had met on the ship, who got him a room to stay in and his job at New York City's Biltmore Hotel making about $26 a week and sending $10 of it to his mother in Limerick. In 1951 he was drafted during the Korean War and was sent to Bavaria, Germany for two years training dogs. Upon his discharge from the US Army, he returned to New York City, where he held a series of jobs on docks, in warehouses, and in banks.
 * Teaching
 * Using his GI Bill from the US Army, Frank talked his way into NYU by claiming he was intelligent and read a lot and was allowed in on one year's probation provided he maintained a B average. He graduated in 1957 from New York University with a Bachelor's degree in English. He taught at a range of six New York schools, including McKee Vocational and Technical High School in Staten Island, New York Technical College in Brooklyn, Stuyvesant High School, Seward Park High School, Washington Irving High School, and the High School of Fashion Industries, all in Manhattan. In 1967, he earned his Master's degree at Brooklyn College and in the late 60's he spent 18 months at Trinity College in Dublin, failing to earn his PhD before returning to New York City. In a 1997 NY Times Op-Ed essay, Mr. McCourt wrote about his experiences teaching immigrant mothers at New York Technical College in Brooklyn.
 * Writing
 * He received the Pulitzer Prize (1997) and National Book Critics Circle Award (1996) for his memoir Angela's Ashes (1996), which details his impoverished childhood in Limerick. He also authored Tis (1999), which continues the narrative of his life, picking up from the end of the previous book and focusing on life as a new immigrant in America. Teacher Man (2005) detailed the challenges of being a young, uncertain teacher.

Selected Works
Frank McCourts Novels
 * Angela's Ashes
 * Published May 25, 1996
 * Angela's Ashes is the luminous memoir of Frank McCourt, born in Depression-era Brooklyn to recent Irish immigrants and raised in the slums of Limerick, Ireland. Frank’s mother, Angela, has no money to feed the children since Frank’s father, Malachy, rarely works, and when he does he drinks his wages. Yet Malachy—exasperating, irresponsible, and beguiling—does nurture in Frank an appetite for the one thing he can provide: a story. Frank lives for his father’s tales of Cuchulain, who saved Ireland, and of the Angel on the Seventh Step, who brings his mother babies.
 * 'Tis
 * Published August 28, 2000
 * This is the story of Frank's American journey from impoverished immigrant to brilliant teacher and raconteur. Reank land in New York at age nineteem, in the company of a priest he meets on the boat. He gets a job at the Biltmore Hotel, where he immediately encounter the vivid heirarchies of this "classesless country," and then is drafted into the army and is sent to Germany to train dogs and type reports.
 * Teacher Man
 * Published November 15,2005
 * McCourt struggles to find his way in the classroom and spends his evenings drinking with writers and dreaming of one day putting his own story to paper. Teacher Man shows McCourt developing his unparalleled ability to tell a great story as, five days a week, five periods per day, he works to gain the attention and respect of unruly, hormonally charged or indifferent adolescents. McCourt's rocky marriage, his failed attempt to get a Ph.D. at Trinity College, Dublin, and his repeated firings due to his propensity to talk back to his superiors ironically lead him to New York's most prestigious school, Stuyvesant High School, where he finally finds a place and a voice. "Doggedness," he says, is "not as glamorous as ambition or talent or intellect or charm, but still the one thing that got me through the days and nights."