The book “Angela’s Ashes” burst on the scene two decades ago and of course it was made into a movie because any good book should be made into a movie, sure as I’m tellin’ ya. Francis “Frankie” McCourt tells us of his poor father who can’t keep a job he likes the pint so much, he can’t help it with his Northern ways and Frankie’s poor mother well she keeps birthing out those babies and don’t some of them die, the poor things, the father likes his drink so much doesn’t he but drink the milk money.
Frankie being the eldest of course has to care for the smaller ones and he but a wee child himself and always hungry, dirty and wearing rags ’tis a disgrace. That old man of his needs to keep a job but you know he’s a Protestant and has those funny ways about him he’s lucky to be hired at all.
Off Frankie goes to school with his shoes falling apart and his father tries to fix them with old tires that he cuts up and nails onto the shoes, and says There son good as new they are, and poor Frankie is embarrassed and decides ’tis better to be taking off the shoes and be barefoot like some of the other boys than to walk into school with these things on his feet.
When Frankie gets sick and goes to the hospital he gets clean white sheets everyday with no fleas in his bed and three meals a day even if the girl who brings him his food is strange a meal is a meal anyway, isn’t it.
Angela, Frankie’s Mam stares into the fireplace ash and sometimes there is nothing to burn in the fireplace so Frankie and his brother Malachy go down to where the coal fell off the carts that are delivering coal to the rich people, and they find the coal in the road and they take home the lumps of coal and some sticks of wood and their Mam says, Thank you my good boys for bringing home the coal to burn. Dad says, they should not be down there like beggars picking up the coal off the street, I am too proud to do that. Ha, Mam says you are proud enough to let your kids freeze to death after you drank all your wages down at the pub.
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I know that Mr. Frank McCourt is no longer with us on this green earth, God rest his soul, but I thought it would be good for meself to re-read the book so that I can gear meself up for the special National Novel Writing Month, also known as NaNoWriMo, and that by reading this book wouldn’t it be helpful to just put the words down onto the paper as they come and not be worrying about the grammar and the spelling and the sentence structure and get it onto the paper and then be worrying about the fixin’ up of it come December?
SueAnn Porter 