Second Quarter ORB Review

‘Tis by Frank McCourt. A Touchstone Book, 1999 Genre:Memoir

‘Tis is the second of Frank McCourt’s memoirs that he’s written. The first was Angela’s Ashes. The first book was about McCourt’s life as a child growing up in a poor family in Limerick, Ireland. ‘Tis, the story I read, is about him coming to America as a young man and trying to fit in and find something he enjoys. He goes through quite a few jobs before finding one that suited him best: a teacher. Along the way he meets many people that have an effect on his life, one of them being his wife, Ellen Frey.

“A remarkable book, often hilariously funny, occasionally painful, always lively…McCourt…possesses a singular genius that serves him uncommonly well: He can weave the stuff of his life-sad, disappointing, or grand-into glorious stories, as funny as any I know.” Says Jill Laurie Goodman, of The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Since this is a memoir, the story is told in first person. McCourt’s story is really not all that funny, but as he writes he uses humor keeping his readers interested. Also at some points in the story he has a very serious tone making it seem quite sad and real.
‘Tis shows readers what life was like for not only an Irish immigrant but immigrants of all nationalities, during the 50’s. It shows the struggles and emotions of McCourt as he tries to find where he belongs in this new society: America.

"I drank my beer and wondered what kind of a country is this where cops keep telling you move on, where people put pigeon shit in your ham sandwich, where a girl who's engaged to a football player walks away from me because I'm not wearing a tie, where a nun will baptize Michael...what's left of him though he suffered in a concentration camp and deserves to be left in his Jewish condition bothering no one, where college students eat and drink to their hearts' content and moan about existentialism and the emptiness of everything, and cops tell you once again, Move on," (207).

I enjoyed reading ‘Tis and I am thinking about reading McCourt’s first memoir Angela’s Ashes. I really liked the way he wrote with such humor on such a serious topic. This book also gave me a better idea for what it was and probably still is like today, for immigrants in America.