Tis Unabridged : A Memoir

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Summary: Can you ever leave where you came from?
Review: After reading "'Tis", I've come to the conclusion that "Angela's Ashes" was so wonderful because, psychologically, Frank McCourt never left the Limerick slums. He told the story of his childhood with a stunning urgency and directness, as if the events he described had happened yesterday and not enough time had passed for analysis and interpretation. In "'Tis" we learn that perhaps Frank never achieved the distance of maturity and contentment that would have allowed analysis or interpretation. He can't tell us what his wounds signify because they're still so fresh. And for a man who left Limerick over fifty years ago, that's rather sad.

I wonder how Frank McCourt feels knowing that the childhood that shamed him was, in the end, his key to the literary fame and fortune he so keenly envied throughout his adult life. The final irony of "'Tis" is this: The only way Frank McCourt could overcome his childhood was to reveal it. It's a pity the book ends before McCourt realizes that he can, after all, achieve the American dream. Turn your soul inside out and watch the checks roll in.

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Summary: Vincent Jiang's Tis review
Review: Frank Mccourt is born in Irish, he had won the 1997 Pulitzer Prize, and other important awards and his book "The Angela's Ashes" became a bestseller over three years. He has destroyed teeth, pimply face and sore eyes.
'Tis is a book that continued from a book call "The Angela's Ashes." Both books are a biography that written by Frank Mccourt. The Angela's Ashes is about Frank Mccourt's young age in Irish, how he experience conflict from his parent, which affects him made a decision coming to America. And the book 'Tis is about Frank's America journey from a poor immigrant to an intelligent teacher. Frank Mccourt is a very strong and has gentle sense of humor. Frank Mccourt lands in New York at age nineteen in the October of 1949. When he first steps in New York, he meets a priest from a company and he introduces Frank a job at the Biltmore Hotel. And then Frank is drafted into the army and is sent to Germany to train dogs and type reports. When Frank returns to America in 1953, he works on the pier. By then, he always dreams of being a student. He is accepted at New York University without any required high school degree. At the University he meets Alberta Small, the lovely girl in NYU. In the summer of 1961 Frank marries her. In 1971 his daughter Maggie is born and they have their own house, but the marriage of Frank and Alberta fails. Five year later, Frank walks out and stays with a friend. Later on, Frank decided to study at Brooklyn College he sometimes sees his mother and his mother died from too much smoking. Frank visits his father twice-in Belfast, his father was drunk all the time and hasn't change anything good. In January 1985 Frank's father dies at the Royal Victoria Hospital. Frank flies to the funeral in Belfast. After he finish Brooklyn College. He went back to New York and decided to start his teaching career.
The book writes about Frank's ability to succeed in America, Although Frank finds himself trapped in difficult relationships with his parent, and making several problems in America, Frank's sees clearly about education with his Irish eyes. The theme of this book is mostly on family relationships.
The significant of this book will be related to the book "Angela's Ashes." Frank Mccourt talks about his childhood with his Catholic mother, his 3 brothers, and his alcoholic father left the family in poverty. Frank felt regretted bout leaving his mother in Ireland when the time he was in New York.

He wrote lot lyrics in the book. Ending with
A mother's love is a blessing
No matter where you roam,
Keep her while she's living,
You'll miss her when she's gone.

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Summary: Too many missing pieces.
Review: Having grown up in an Irish family in NY I loved reading Angela's Ashes. Although my father did not suffer through the poverty, his mother was a widow so he was raised by his Grandmother in Kilrush, he had many friends who did. What I found most disapointing about Tis were the gaps. Frank's picture on the cover does not show red eyes or terrible teeth,it shows a good looking man. Yet when he entered the army that was their first priority. There is nothing about a cure or a dentist. Also, he skips from teaching in Staten Island to Malachy and Michael having a bar and a great time in NY. How did that happen? Tis was a difficult read. It was not a book that I looked forward to coming home to. I had to force myself to continue. Frank McCourt has a wonderful gift but he fell short on Tis.

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Summary: More great stories, a different setting
Review: I've read some rather scathing reviews of "'Tis", and I don't think it deserves to be pounded. The narrative style is the same; and, it picks up precisely where "Angela's Ashes" left off. Anyone else notice that "Angela" hadn't gone to ashes at the end? I don't think this book was a rushed effort. Rather, it seems that the aspect that makes it mildly less satisfying is the fact that it doesn't challenge us to look at our own lives and compare, the way "Angela" did. The main differences: a change of venue (we're in NYC, now; not Ireland), the age of the narrator and the disappointment in his values and morals (or lack thereof). If you're looking for a book about growing up, a memoir in which the writer maintains his dignity and morals, read Paul Watkins' memoir: "Stand Before Your God". But, don't be afraid of "'Tis". Frank McCourt is still a wonderful storyteller, even if he doesn't horrify us and make us reflect on poverty vs. comfort in this second book.

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Summary: AMAZING STORY
Review: Sequel of "Angela's ashes", I was not disappointed a second. The book starts exactly when Angela's...finished. It's written with talent. We hear about what happen to the dad & mum afterwards(You can also learn more on Malachy's first book...Read it).
By the way you'll learn of anything happened to Frank in USA, his return to Europe (after war as a soldier) and in Ireland.
A life that could have finished in an Irish lane fortunately made it in USA successfully.

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Summary: A Natural Progression
Review: Those of us who grew to cherish the irresitible McCourt children of "Angela's Ashes" waded through Malachy's memoirs until we could take up the Limerick jigs in brother Frank's sequel. Well here 'tis and though many readers have been dissappointed in the struggles in America, struggles so related to the prior Irish version of world view, I find the growing pains of the "re-patriated Frank" endearing. The view of the self as secretively fraudulent is not new, but rarely has the payche of the American Dream been so personally defined. We all are foreigners to this land, whether in our generation or ones past, and following Frank McCourt's voyage from being "uneducated" to becoming a warm and caring Teacher brings many moments of tender relating.

Although the significant charm of "Angela's Ashes" was McCourt's uncanny ability to maintain the child's point of view, means of thinking, modes of expression that made his book so touching, "Tis" fleshes out all the characters seeded in that memoir and allows the passage of time and maturity of the original voice to win us over at last. Is it a perfect book? No. Is it worth your reading? 'Tis.

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Summary: This books provides it all! Humor,Sadness,Anger,Sympathy,etc
Review: With "Angelas Ashes" I cried alot and laughed a little. With "Tis" I laughed alot and cried a little. Frank's style of writing is so compelling, so gripping, that it dares you to put the book down. Being a Protestant turned Catholic, totally non-Irish having spent my entire "Late-Baby-Boomer" life in the middle to upper middle-class of American society, spoiled from from the day I was born, I have almost nothing in common with Frank McCourt. Yet by the end of "Tis", I feel as if I am a part of his family having suffered and experienced, even if only in my mind, the horrific circumstances in depression-era Ireland and the struggle of an individual, with nothing but desire, to obtain the American Dream......whatever that might be! Through the reading of Frank McCourt's memoirs, I have learned things about myself that I did not realize. Mostly, that I too must have "my bladder near my eyes"!