'Tis: A Memoir

Frank McCourt's glorious childhood memoir, Angela's Ashes, has been loved and celebrated by readers everywhere for its spirit, its wit and its profound humanity. A tale of redemption, in which storytelling itself is the source of salvation, it won the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Rarely has a book so swiftly found its place on the literary landscape.

And now we have 'Tis, the story of Frank's American journey from impoverished immigrant to brilliant teacher and raconteur. Frank lands in New York at age nineteen, in the company of a priest he meets on the boat. He gets a job at the Biltmore Hotel, where he immediately encounters the vivid hierarchies of this "classless country," and then is drafted into the army and is sent to Germany to train dogs and type reports. It is Frank's incomparable voice -- his uncanny humor and his astonishing ear for dialogue -- that renders these experiences spellbinding.

When Frank returns to America in 1953, he works on the docks, always resisting what everyone tells him, that men and women who have dreamed and toiled for years to get to America should "stick to their own kind" once they arrive. Somehow, Frank knows that he should be getting an education, and though he left school at fourteen, he talks his way into New York University. There, he falls in love with the quintessential Yankee, long-legged and blonde, and tries to live his dream. But it is not until he starts to teach -- and to write -- that Frank finds his place in the world. The same vulnerable but invincible spirit that captured the hearts of readers in Angela's Ashes comes of age.

As Malcolm Jones said in his Newsweek review of Angela's Ashes, "It is only the best storyteller who can so beguile his readers that he leaves them wanting more when he is done...and McCourt proves himself one of the very best." Frank McCourt's 'Tis is one of the most eagerly awaited books of our time, and it is a masterpiece.

For all of you complaining that you don't like the book because Frank swears, sleeps around, drinks too much and loses interest in his wife, please don't confuse dislike for a disturbing subject matter for dislike for a work of literature.


A story of human complexity   October 31, 1999
Frank Balogh, Jr. (Dayton, Ohio, USA)
45 out of 51 found this review helpful

I've just finished "Tis" and found I have mixed feelings about the work and the author - feelings I didn't have concerning "Angela's Ashes". During my reading, I found myself rooting for Frank McCourt to not fall into the same trap as his father did, that trap the Irish call "the weakness". I rooted for him to go to school, get the girl, live the American dream happily ever after. But this wasn't the way Frank McCourt's life was to be.

So I obviosly made the mistake most reviewers of "Tis" made. This work is a MEMOIR, not a work of fiction nor fantasy. If I take Frank McCourt at his written word, he has been mostly unsuccessful in his life's dreams, and fallen far short of personal goals. The book seems to be more of a self examination held in public for ridicule and criticism - as any good Catholic boy must do. Who else would have to air their linen thus. And who else except a superb story teller could make a success of it in spite of those failings. It's a MEMOIR. It's a sad, joyful, shameful, depressing, and very funny MEMOIR. It doesn't need any psychoanalysis or critical reader analysis, or comparisons to similar authors past or present. It's a MEMOIR!


A Natural Progression   December 5, 1999
Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States)
37 out of 44 found this review helpful

Those of us who grew to cherish the irresitible McCourt children of "Angela's Ashes" waded through Malachy's memoirs until we could take up the Limerick jigs in brother Frank's sequel. Well here 'tis and though many readers have been dissappointed in the struggles in America, struggles so related to the prior Irish version of world view, I find the growing pains of the "re-patriated Frank" endearing. The view of the self as secretively fraudulent is not new, but rarely has the payche of the American Dream been so personally defined. We all are foreigners to this land, whether in our generation or ones past, and following Frank McCourt's voyage from being "uneducated" to becoming a warm and caring Teacher brings many moments of tender relating.

Although the significant charm of "Angela's Ashes" was McCourt's uncanny ability to maintain the child's point of view, means of thinking, modes of expression that made his book so touching, "Tis" fleshes out all the characters seeded in that memoir and allows the passage of time and maturity of the original voice to win us over at last. Is it a perfect book? No. Is it worth your reading? 'Tis.


'Twasn't   January 31, 2000
Missy (Grosse Point Park, Michigan)
35 out of 43 found this review helpful

Like many other readers, I thoroughly enjoyed Angela's Ashes. What I liked most about that book was the note of irrepressible optimism on which it ended - the sense that, despite a childhood of unbelievable deprivation, the author would nevertheless prevail. I embarked upon my reading of 'Tis anxious to learn whether that promise would be fulfilled. For the first several chapters, it appeared that McCourt would indeed make good on that promise. As his prospects in life improved during the first portion of 'Tis, I found myself cheering for the author's successes. However, I was puzzled that the author did not seem to join in my rejoicing. Rather, the better his situation became, the more bitter and ungrateful McCourt appeared to grow. By the time he attained the two things that would have seemed nigh unto impossible given his upbringing - an academic career and a beautiful, educated wife - McCourt had disintegrated into a petulant, selfish drunk. Much of the remainder of the book recounts McCourt's forays into seedy bars, where he bemoans the fact that his monogamous relationship requires that he never truly experience the 'bohemian' lifestyle. In short, he turns out to be incredibly ungrateful for his good fortune. What makes this truly disappointing isn't that McCourt turns out to have faults - surely anyone who experienced the type of deprivation and neglect that McCourt did is entitled to be flawed. Rather, the drawback is that McCourt's flaws are neither interesting nor understandable. In light of the fact that he escaped from the slums of Limerick against overwhelming odds, it is virtually impossible to forgive him the vice of ingratitude. Worse, his sins are bland and unremarkable - he spends too much time in bars when he should be with his wife and family, he is derisive of his students, he doesn't pay his bills on time. In short, he has ceased to be a hero, but lacks sufficient color and malice to make him an interesting villain. Although some have praised his honesty in revealing these unflattering facts of his life, the mere fact that something is painful and embarrasing to reveal does not necessarily mean that it deserves to be shared. Where McCourt's triumph over adversity is a unique and inspiring tale worthy of being published (as it was in Angela's Ashes, and in the first part of 'Tis), his peccadilloes are pallid and uninteresting, and detract from the positive message he has to relay. Frankly, the last third of the book is nothing short of boring. Also, there is a sense of disorganization and rush about the latter part of the book, as if the author were in a hurry to fill up the pages, and had really run out of things he wanted to say in the first place. It really seemed as if he were writing to fulfill some kind of book contract obligation, rather than because he was burning to tell his tale.

Some people have argued that 'Tis is only a disappointment if you expect it to be a continuation of Angela's Ashes. They maintain that 'Tis is a very different book than Angela's Ashes, but has merit in its own right. I would have to disagree. 'Tis is, on the whole, a grossly disappointing book, whether or not you choose to view it as a sequel to Angela's Ashes. Unless you are dying to find out what happened to the protagonist of Angela's Ashes, this book isn't worth your time.