'Tis: A memoir
by Frank McCourt
Overview
From the Publisher
Frank McCourt's glorious childhood memoir, Angela's Ashes, has been loved and celebrated by readers everywhere. 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 and 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 that renders these experiences spellbinding.
When Frank returns to America in 1953, he works on the docks, always resisting what everyone tells him. He 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 and tries to live his dream. But it is not until he starts to teach that Frank finds his place in the world.
My thoughts
As you may recall from my review of the first book in this series, Angela's Ashes, I came upon this series quite by accident at a buy 2/get 1 free sale at the bookstore. After reading the first book, I just had to buy the second, 'Tis.
This second book by Frank McCourt is about his life in America. While not quite as good as the first book, it ran a close second. It's one of those books that's hard to put down because it's so entertaining. I thought it got a little bit heavy towards the end when his mother was back in America too, but definitely worth the read!
Favorite Passage
There were to be fourteen passengers on the ship but one canceled and we had to sail with an unlucky number. The first night out the captain stood up at dinner and welcomed us. He laughed and said he wasn't superstitious over the number of passengers but since there was a priest among us wouldn't it be lovely if His Reverence would say a prayer to come between us and all harm. The priest was a plump little man, born in Ireland, but so long in his Los Angeles parish he had no trace of an Irish accent. When he got up to say a prayer and bless himself four passengers kept their hands in their laps and that told me they were Protestants. My mother used to say you could spot Protestants a mile away by their reserved manner. The priest asked Our Lord to look down on us with pity and love, that whatever happened on these stormy seas we were ready to be enfolded forever in his Divine Bosom. An old Protestant reached for his wife's hand. She smiled and shook her head back at him and he smiled, too, as if to say, Don't worry.
The priest sat next to me at the dinner table. He whispered that those two old Protestants were very rich from raising Thoroughbred racehorses in Kentucky and if I had any sense I'd be nice to them, you never know.
I wanted to ask what was the proper way to be nice to rich Protestants who raise racehorses but I couldn't for fear the priest might think I was a fool. I heard Protestants say the Irish people were so charming and their children so adorable you hardly noticed how poor they were.
