“Happiness is hard to recall. It’s just a glow.” —Frank McCourt (1930-2009)
There’s one very Mighty lesson to be gained in any study of Frank McCourt’s great literary life.
Perseverance.
McCourt’s memoir, “Angela’s Ashes,” which detailed his dirt poor Irish upbringing in Limerick and sold more than four-million copies around the world, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1996. He was 66 at the time.
Prior to becoming an internationally renowned famous writer, McCourt spent 30 years teaching English and creative writing in the New York public school system.
“Teacher Man,” his 2006 book about those teaching experiences, should be required reading for high school English and writing teachers everywhere.
“The two things I like most of all,” he said when “Teacher Man” was published, “are books and children.”
“When anyone asks me about the Irish character,” the writer Edna O’Brien once said, “I say look at the trees—maimed, stark and misshapen, but ferociously tenacious.”
Words that could describe Frank McCourt’s long and hard—but mightily admirable—road to literary glory.
