Och, 'Tis Such A Sad Story
By Preston Sinclair
"My father and mother should have stayed in New York where they met and married and where I was born."
Frank McCourt
All those poor babies dying, and children starving, and men and women suffering from consumption. And yet, I'm here. Perhaps there's something to Darwin's theory of survival of the fittest. Ireland must have a very strong gene pool. You see, my great grandfather Thomas Lawrence came over on the boat from Ireland in 1907. If it had not been for him, I wouldn't be here.
Frank McCourt's seminal memoir, Angela's Ashes, touched a chord with me as it did with many readers. According to The Daily Mail, it struck a sour note with some of his actual friends and family from Ireland who cried foul because of his portrayal of them. Regardless of how they may feel, these were his impressions and his memories as a child. They should write their own books if they're not happy about what he had to say.
If I were to write my own memoir, it could be called Lena's Ashes. That's because I can imagine great-grandma Lena Lawrence chain smoking unfiltered cigarettes by the fire as she ponders, "Och, what have I done to deserve this?" I mean, there has to be a story behind this picture of my great grandparents. Was he a devilish cad who drank too much as Irish men are wont to do? Alas, I will never know because I never thought to ask my grandmother, their daughter, about them. Yet the fact that she never spoke of either of them speaks volumes to me.
I remember visiting great-grandma Lawrence at Whispering Pines Old Folks Home when I was a child of about six or seven. She never spoke a word to me, yet I have this image of her nodding at me with that same grim smile on her face, her wild gray hair tied back in an Edwardian pony tail. I was terrified.
Frank McCourt's lilting Irish voice carried me through his memoirs from the age of four, when his family moved from New york to Ireland, to the age of eighteen, when he returned from Ireland to New York. He's at his best when he goes off on a riff about religion, or his family. His rants build to a crescendo to which we can all relate.
One of my favorite passages in the story is where Mr O'Dea assigns Frank the task of writing a composition about what it would be like if Our Lord had grown up in Ireland. With brutal honesty Frank writes, 'It's a good thing Jesus decided to be born Jewish in that warm place because if he was born in Limerick he'd catch the consumption and be dead in a month...'
Sometimes life is a random sepia toned drama.
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| Jacket photograph (c) culvwe pictures inc. |
Frank McCourt
Frank McCourt's seminal memoir, Angela's Ashes, touched a chord with me as it did with many readers. According to The Daily Mail, it struck a sour note with some of his actual friends and family from Ireland who cried foul because of his portrayal of them. Regardless of how they may feel, these were his impressions and his memories as a child. They should write their own books if they're not happy about what he had to say.
 |
| Lena and Thomas Lawrence |
I remember visiting great-grandma Lawrence at Whispering Pines Old Folks Home when I was a child of about six or seven. She never spoke a word to me, yet I have this image of her nodding at me with that same grim smile on her face, her wild gray hair tied back in an Edwardian pony tail. I was terrified.
Frank McCourt's lilting Irish voice carried me through his memoirs from the age of four, when his family moved from New york to Ireland, to the age of eighteen, when he returned from Ireland to New York. He's at his best when he goes off on a riff about religion, or his family. His rants build to a crescendo to which we can all relate.
One of my favorite passages in the story is where Mr O'Dea assigns Frank the task of writing a composition about what it would be like if Our Lord had grown up in Ireland. With brutal honesty Frank writes, 'It's a good thing Jesus decided to be born Jewish in that warm place because if he was born in Limerick he'd catch the consumption and be dead in a month...'
Sometimes life is a random sepia toned drama.
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