Frank McCourt

First of all I'd like to tell you something about Frank McCourt's childhood. He is born in 1930 in New York, that's why he has the American passport. But he grew up in Limerick, that's in Ireland (show it on the film). His family consists of:

Frank McCourt himself,

his mother Angela McCourt,

his father Malachy McCourt,

and his three younger brothers Malachy, Michael and Alphie.

Due to the facts that the parents haven't got enough money to feed the children and Malachy McCourt, the father, can't earn any money in Limerick, he goes to England like a lot of other Irish men to find some work. Angela rarely gets some money because if Malachy works he drinks his wages. So Frank has to leave school at the age of fourteen to earn money to feed his family. At the same time he uses the opportunity to save some. (film about the childhood)

One of his biggest dreams is to go back to the USA. That's where my book begins.

It begins in Cork in 1949 where Frank goes on board of a ship to New York. He went there with the big expectation of NY to be the solution of his problems. You have to imagine Frank as a poor dressed nineteen years old boy with a pimply face, sore eyes and bad teeth. That's like he describes himself. On the ship he gets to know a priest. As they arrive in NY the priest proposes Frank to take a hotelroom with him till he finds a place to stay. Next day they find a furnished room and a job for Frank. One evening he meets Tom Clifford, another Irish, and he goes out with him. They get to know some girls and Frank is to shy to talk to them, because he is feared of making a fool of himself. In the first few months he works as a houseman in a hotel, the Biltmore Hotel. But fast he notices that this job didn't come up to his expectations. After a while he gets a letter from his mother in which she asks for some money. Because of his sore eyes he is transferred to another job. His boss doesn't want to have Frank in the lobby of his hotel, because he fears there could be problems with the guests. This is one of the incidents that confirms McCourt's poor opinion of himself. Like I said in the beginning, Frank expected NY to be the solution of his problems. And now I want to read a small excerpt with you, about how he feels embarrassed of not having reached the level he wanted to access. (p. 43)

His first Christmas Eve in NY is nearly a catastrophe. First he has a Christmas drink at his job place. Then he goes for some drinks with a colleague. Afterwards he is so drunk he has to throw up. In the end he has forgotten he was invited for dinner by his landlady and her sister. As he finally comes home the landlady's sister welcomes Frank with some insults about the Irishs. I think it's a good example to show what the opinion of a lot of Americans was, if they weren't Irish themselves. (read on p. 52, film)

From the beginning on he wants to be a student. But he doesn't know how to become one because he has no high school diploma. The other reason for him is he is really ashamed because of his eyes. This is also the reason why he doesn't dare to speak to any girl. With Tom he meets his first girlfriend, Emer. Shortly after Frank joins the ranks of the US Army because of the war in Korea. It might sound silly, but he is thankful for this war, because he says that it's liberating him from the Biltmore Hotel. The recruits are sent to New Jersey for orientation and indoctrination. There they are treated like dirt. Few weeks later he is promoted to colonel's orderly and the reward is a three-day week end pass with which he can go to NY to see Emer. He also looks forward to this week end because it's the one of his 21 birthday.

The Friday of his three-day pass he is asked to drop a butt by a corporal but McCourt doesn't drop it because he doesn't smoke. So he isn't allowed to go to NY. Against he has to wash pots and pans. After this he gets the advice to follow the policy of telling his superiors nothing but name, rank and serial number especially because he has a brogue that stands out.

In 1951 they are shipped to Germany, where Frank is sent to Bavaria where he is assigned to the canine corps. At first he is reluctant to do something with the dogs but with the time he begins to like them. He is disappointed as the company commander sends him to company clerk school, where he learns to type daily attendance reports without mistakes. If they just make one they have to retype the whole thing. As he finished school he has to replace the clerk of his company. As this one comes back Frank has to distribute sheets, blankets, pillows and condoms to dog handler trainees. During the time in Germany he is twice sent to Munich in a military hospital. He uses the time there to read, one of his biggest hobbies.

After the first time he was in hospital two things happen him. First he is promoted to corporal because of his powerful typing and the reward is a two weeks furlough he wants to spend in Ireland with his family. He also wants to see the new house his mother bought with the allotment he sent her.

As he arrives in Limerick he is really proud of his rank in the US Army. But as his mother says they are still living in their old house in a slum of Limerick Frank gets angry and says that he is going to sleep in the hotel. As he is there his conscience is pricking him. The next day the family moves to the new house.

A few days later he gets a letter from his aunt who's living in the North of Ireland with Frank's father and their mother. In the letter stands that Frank should come and visit them. He hesitates because he is a bit feared to see his father again after this long time and also because he is angry with him. But at the end he goes anyway. The atmosphere there is really strange and as his aunt and grandmother begin to defend Malachy's behaviour against Angela an give her the fault of their misery, Frank gets furious and goes back to Limerick.

After this furlough he feels confirmed in his decision of making his way in the USA and not to return to Limerick for a long time.

The day of his discharge from the Army he meets Tom Clifford in NY. He procures Frank a room and a job in a warehouse. Frank would prefer to work in an office where Emer wants him to be but due to the good pay he accepts the warehouses. There he gets to know Horace. He is the only black man there. McCourt regards him as a sort of father, because Horace is like Frank wanted his father to be.

But Frank isn't happy at all, he still has the wish of being a student. And this wish gets stronger every morning when he sees all the other men in suits and ties going to work and reading the newspaper.

After a while Emer breaks up with Frank because she's engaged to an insurance man. First Frank wants to get her back with being hired by an insurance company, but as it doesn't work he begins to forget her and then, what's the sense of being in the insurance business? He gives it up.

One day as he sits in a bar after work he thinks about his life and walks to the NY University to register with his GI Bill, high school or no high school. Because he has no high school graduation there are some problems for the registering but he manages to convince the Dean of Admissions and begins to study, but he is on probation.

In 1954 he is a full time student at NYU but still working part time in different jobs to earn some money. He needs it for his room and also for the allotment he is still sending his mother.

Just to mention one of his jobs:

Because he completed company clerk school he can work with personal loan applications in a bank. There he can change rejected applications into accepted.

In this year Frank's brother Michael comes to NY and wants to go to the US Airforce like his brother Malachy.

In the lectures Frank gets to know Alberta Small. He falls deeply in love with her, but in the first time she doesn't return his love. They go out together and sometimes when she is invited to cocktail parties she takes him along. He never feels very well there. Few days after a dispute between them she calls him in tears because her father punched her and so they get reconciled.

In the summer of 1957 Frank McCourt completes his degree courses and passes the Board of Education exams for teaching high school English.

In 1958 he gets a job as teacher of English and Economic Citizenship in a vocational and technical high school. It's a very difficult job because the students don't want to learn anything of what Frank has to teach them and they don't respect him. But he never complains to the principal, he even stands up for them.

Even though teacher is the job he ever wanted Frank envies his brother Malachy because he runs a successful bar and is well known in NY. But Frank doesn't want to give up teaching because he doesn't want to accuse himself to take the easy way.

In the time he works in this high school he finds his first own apartment. But few weeks later his electricity is turned off for non-payment.

What would you do in this case?

Well, Frank asks his neighbour from downstairs if he could plug in an extension cord in this one's apartment till he can pay the bill.

Alberta wants to marry Frank, but he doesn't feel enough mature to go into a stable relationship and so she breaks up. She finds someone else and just then Frank notices he is mad for her.

After a while they reconcile and move in together. Because he hasn't got enough money he goes back to work at the warehouses. With the money of the wages and he one he receives from the Beneficial Finance Company he can spend a few weeks in Limerick and I'd like to read with you how the inhabitants of Limerick react when they see Frank. (p. 291)

In 1959 Angela and Alphie are coming to NY for Christmas and the first thing she says to Frank is that he should do something about his eyes that they were red.

Alphie and his mother decide to stay in NY and move in an apartment.

In the summer of 1961 Alberta and frank get married. Afterwards they go for a drink with some friends and as they have to go to their marriage reception Frank is so drunk Alberta drives away in a taxi and lets Frank alone.

Two years later Frank's father visits them in NY after he declared in a letter he hadn't had a drink in three years. Angela is so happy about this that she wants to try it again with him. But he arrives so drunk he has to be helped off the ship. As he comes home drunk for the second time with Frank he has to go back to Ireland and Angela is angry with her son because he let his father drink. From then on their relationship is bad.

Frank McCourt gets a new job in a college where he has to teach a class of paraprofessionals. They were 36 African-American and Hispanic women. It was a great time for him and teaching them made him a lot of fun. The women reached unconsciously that Frank calls his mother after the last lesson and they have a kind of reconciliation. I want to read this excerpt with you. (p.333)

In 1971 Frank's and Alberta's daughter Maggie was born and because of her they bought a new house. The year she was born Frank wants to take her to Ireland so that her first image would be the 'moody Irish skies', like he writes. As he is there he visits his father but Malachy doesn't remember nor his son nor his past.

Alberta, Maggie, Frank and his mother live in Dublin for a while.

Back in NY Angela was so ill she had to be operated. She never got healthy again. In 1981 she died. Four years later Frank's father died but Frank wasn't sad about it. And now I want to read with you the few lines in which Frank McCourt describes his reaction at his father's coffin. (p.383)