Angela's ashes, review of Chap I

It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood.

As the autobiography opens, Frank describes his parents meeting and marrying in New York and eventually moving back to Ireland with their four sons. He characterizes his as a typical "miserable Irish Catholic childhood," complete with drunken father and browbeaten mother. He tells of Limerick's interminable rain, which spread disease through the town.

Frank backtracks and tells the story of his mother and father's lives before the birth of their children. Malachy McCourt, Frank's father, grows up in the north of Ireland, fights for the Old IRA, and commits a crime (unnamed by the narrator) for which a price is placed on his head. Malachy escapes to America to avoid being killed. After indulging his drinking habit in the States and in England for man...