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Frank McCourt's first book, Angela's Ashes, was incredible in its descriptions of an unbelievable poverty experienced within living memory in a Western European country. The impact of the continuation of McCourt's life story could hardly fail to pale in comparison. I felt that his descriptions of his miserable life at a succession of pitiful jobs and in the army dragged on too long. I was irritated by the continual harping on about how fortunate the Americans were, with their electricity, hot and cold running water and cooked food, about how beautiful they all were. It didn't matter what happened to McCourt, good or bad, he was always moaning about how unlucky he was to be Irish, have bad eyes and teeth. None of these things seemed to hold back his brothers, it was just Frank and his dismal view on life and his inability to stay away from the drink. Even when the beautiful Mike / Alberta falls for him, he continues to jeapordise his happiness by his miserable attitude and apparent need to argue and his stubbornness. When his mother arrives on the scene, it is clear where he got his aptitude for seeing the darker side of life; they were a pair made in heaven, well-matched in their ability to be ungracious and ungrateful. Perhaps the reason this grated with me so much was because I have recently read The Adventures of Augie March describing life in a poor Jewish family in Chicago, with an overlapping timeframe, and they were living in similar poverty and squalor; this was by no means the exclusive fate of Irish immigrants and McCourt suggests is was.

It wasn't until the second half of the book that it really came to life for me. McCourt's descriptions of his teaching at the vocational college on Staten Island and later at community college and an upper-class high school in Brooklyn were fascinating, sometimes hilarious and probably ring true for all teachers of teenagers. The way Frank won students over to his side, or at least got them discussing books, even if they weren't the books on the syllabus, was wonderful. His reverse psychology which resulted in an entire class enthusiastically acting out five of Shakespeare's plays was amusing and inspiring. The fact that he could become a teacher at all, having never gone to high school in Ireland himself, is both proof of 'the American dream' and a sad indictment on the American education system of the time, especially considering McCourt's extreme poverty when starting out as a teacher, unable to pay his way in life and certainly unable to save.

On the whole, I enjoyed this book, although I never warmed to the author himself. Perhaps if I heard these stories told by the man himself as a self-deprecating comic over a pint of beer, I would appreciate it more. It was also a shame that he didn't paint longer portraits of some of his friends, many of whom seem to have been real characters, such as Horace at the docks and his neighbour Virgil Frank. In fact, the whole book seems to be rather self-centred, and this is what lowers my rating. Entertaining, but not memorable enough.