Rating: 
Summary: a rollicking memoir!
Review: Malachy McCourt, the younger brother of Frank McCourt of "Angela's Ashes" fame, writes his own memoir of what happens to him once he leaves the lanes of Limerick, Ireland to join his brother in New York in the 1950s at the age of 20. His misadventures are so legendary that he actually gets a regular stint on the Tonight Show just to tell people about them. He has a clever wit, rife with exaggerationand sarcasm, that made mne laugh out loud several times while reading the book.Malachy is a stage and sometimes film actor, a divorced husband and father, a bartender, and even a gold smuggler, which takes him to Rome, Paris, Zurich, Ibiza, Pakistan and India. His writings about all the people he meets and how he handles life's situations are so crazy that you know it's all true. He even revisits the past he has always tried to escape -- his parents Angela and Malachy Sr., which is poignant and a bit of a downer, but hey that's life. More to the point, that's McCourt's life, and it really is an amazing one at that.
Rating: 
Summary: An entertaining tale
Review: This is the memoirs of the larger than life, hard-drinking Malachy McCourt. Born in America, rasied in Ireland and then back to New York as an teen. He made a name for himself in New York city as the first celebrity bartender. He was a social mixer, a writer, an actor of stage and screen. His gift for blarney made him a regular on the Tonight Show. This book is darkly funny. And a bit raw in places, so be warned. But he does tell his story with passion, wit, irreverence and charm. This was a fun read.
Rating:
Summary: CANDID AND HILARIOUS
Review: He was a charmer this Malachy McCourt. That soon becomes clear in his candid, hilarious, racy, I'll-go-you-one-better memoir A Monk Swimming (title drawn from the young Malachy's misunderstanding of the Hail Mary phrase "amongst women.")
He was also self-congratulatory, allowing that a party wasn't complete "without my wit, my erudition, and my exuberance, not to mention presence."
A prodigious drinker, womanizer, and gold smuggler, he was an angry young man, intermittently furious with God, his parents, the Catholic church, specifically Cardinal Spellman, the St. Patrick's Day Parade, all things British, and, at times, unsuspecting bystanders.
Admittedly dedicated to self-gratifying pursuits, he writes, "Indulgence is mine...having been the victim of other people's ideas of sin, original and otherwise, from the time of birth." Mr. McCourt seems to have been fond of one person - Mr. McCourt. And so is the reader, perhaps because beneath the blarney and braggadocio is an unmitigated pain born of destitution and a longing for the father he sought but never found.
Many are familiar with his poverty stricken childhood as traced in brother Frank McCourt's vaunted Angela's Ashes. Now, we hear Malachy's story of the years between 1950 and 1962, years spent and wasted on the streets and stages of New York City.
After arriving in "the U.S.of A." at the age of 20, Mr. McCourt found work on the docks. He also discovered that one could avoid bills by stamping "Deceased" on the envelopes, and, that if he were entertaining enough, his bar glass was freely refilled.
His ready way with words earned him some stage roles, plus a stint on the Jack Paar Show. This minor celebrity led to a partnership in the opening of an eastside saloon, "Malachy's," just around the corner from the Barbizon Hotel for Women, "a large building throbbing with post-pubescent sexuality."
Soon, "Malachy's" habitues included Grace Kelly "generally accompanied by ugly, thuggish, beetle-browed types," Gig Young, Barbara Streisand, Peter O'Toole, Richard Burton, Richard Harris, and Mr. McCourt's soon to be "Jewish Presbyterian" wife, Linda Claire. A union so objectionable to his mother that she redevoted herself to Catholicism, and rendered a "poor old, shure, begorrah, close-to-the-grave, Irish mother act." Despite "the mother's" dramatic diatribe this marriage produced a son and daughter before ending in divorce.
Upon taking his first "serious drink" at the age of 11, Mr. McCourt felt he was "nearly exploding with joy, with the rapture of freedom from the poverty of the world." Although he was never to feel that alcohol induced euphoria again, liquor was his constant companion. Besotted and burdened with a body vest holding gold bars he caromed to different points of the globe where he delivered his illicit booty then drank and whored the time away. He wandered "...self-pityingly through the streets, yearning for the company of the woman I loved, only because she didn't love me."
A Monk Swimming rollicks along from one unforgettable scene to another - a drinking bout in Robert Mitchum's trailer, a red bearded Mr. McCourt floating sans bathing suit in a swimming pool he believes belongs to Richard Harris, and his unsolicited top-of-the-lungs delivery of countless Irish ballads during a trans-Atlantic flight.
Yet beneath the hilarity there is heartbreak, building toward Mr. McCourt's final confrontation with his father.
Does he embroider his yarns? Is his brogue too broad? Few may care because Malachy McCourt, champion of charm and chicanery, spins an amazing story. All escapades considered, perhaps most amazing is that he lived to tell it. - Gail Cooke
Rating:
Summary: Um... can't we all just get along
Review: Ok people, calm down. So this book is not 'Angela's Ashes'. Hell, how could it be. McCourt may have struck when the iron was hot when he wrote this book, cashing in on his brother's success, but who can blame him. His was not an easy life, and perhaps he figured 'twas time to cash in. At least writing a book is less stressful than international gold smuggling. Is it funny? Of course. McCourt's writing style is occasionally hilarious, and always interesting. Is it entirely true? Well...., not unless you think a slovenly overweight drunk who resembed Kris Kringle on a bad day could get laid at will. Is it pathetic at times? Yes, as McCourt's behavior was no better than the father he so detested. This is the part that seems to be ticking everybody off. A bit of a hypocrite is Malachy I suppose. But an interesting hypocrite at the very least. People may not like McCourt, but the book is not 'bad' because he acted like an arsehole. Lighten up moral majority members. 'Tis a decent read.
Rating: 
Summary: An Interesting Book About A Stereotypical Drunken Irishman.
Review: Being half Irish myself, I'm pretty sick of seeing the Irish portrayed as drunken louts. So imagine how surprised I was to find that the loveable little Malachy I read about in Angela's Ashes had come to America as a teen and become a drunken troublemaker. The book lovingly recounts McCourt's many (VERY MANY) drunken rampages through New York, Ireland, Calcutta (Smuggling Gold), and London, drinking, whoring, and making trouble in stereotypical fashion. I didn't take long for me to start hating Malachy; Watching him float through life, mooching off of others, never doing an honest day's work, drinking up other people's money...it was sickening. But compelling. It was tough to see him repeating the mistakes of his Father. But....he does tell a good story, and he had an unusual life, that's for sure. There are some funny moments, and overall, despite my distaste for him as a person, the book is worth reading for people who are interested in the McCourt Family.
Rating: 
Summary: Pure Junk with Letters Thrown In
Review: This book is junk. How dare Frank McCourt's brother sponge off Frank like this! I couldn't get past the first few pages, it was so bad. I wasn't expecting an Angela's Ashes; I would have settled for a little bit of honesty from the author! Is that too much to ask? I quickly got tired of the author telling of his exuberant, extraverted adventures as a boy, then having either the audacity or the blindness to claim a page later how he was just this "shy" little creature. Malachey couldn't be shy if his life depended on it! What a bunch of mularkey. This whole book was a scam. Don't waste your money. What little I read was terribly poor writing. This man had no business entering the field of writing, he is an actor and bartender who has obviously spent very little time honing any sort of craft, he is simply a remora fish eating the crumbs off the tailfin of his brother.
And the countless, shameless name-dropping! Who cares! This was a fiasco.
Rating:
Summary: victriolic nonsense
Review: If you like pointless sarcastic vitriolic junk, buy this book. Mr McCourt has nothing good to say about anything. He attacks everything here, captitalism, God, religion, Ireland, England America, rich folk, poor folk, his family with absolutely no wisdom of any kind to contribute. He seems to find nobility in drunkeness, public nudity promiscuitity and profanity. What a waste.
Rating:
Summary: WOW
Review: This book is off the hizzy fo shizzy. Man, I will let you know that Mr. McCourt is a) cooler than you, b) a bigger drinker than, c) more imporatant friends than you!! haha, this man is the greatest thing ever and in this great work of 'fiction', he pretends to be a drunken irishman who wonders around NY getting drunk on booze for free and occassionally taking some way cool drugs (meskaline) and rocking out to all kinds of groovy words. BUY THIS BOOK!!
Rating:
Summary: Five stars for the laughs...thanks, Malachy!
Review: What a funny, funny book. It doesn't have the heart that
Frank's books do, especially Angela's Ashes, but it's a very endearing bit of storytelling - lots of storytelling - and he really knocked me on my arse with some of the scenes, especially the gold-smuggling in India and the romp with the German countess in Ibizia. Anyone who can make me laugh like that gets my gratitude, all the way. He's a wordsmith - a real poet who obviously loves to play with language, which is so endearing to me as a writer myself. And he knew lots of interesting people, including Richard Harris and Robert Mitchum. Also, he speaks of a NYC in the fifties that 's added to my sense of the town's history. I did notice, however, that his description of his father, who abandoned him and was a drunken sot his whole life, could describe the author as well. Malachy, however, really does
seem to love his children, and with the mention of one AA meeting may be trying to tell us he's a recovering drunk. I hope so. If so, this book is like a Fourth Step, because it's a straight, dry-eyed look at the many mean, stupid and irrational things he did to himself and others for the years he was, literally and figuratively, drinking himself under the table. Anyway, I hope he's got a much more stable life these days, and that he's managed to grow up, unlike his Da.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Read
Review: This is not Frank, it's Malachy. If you're tempted to read this book because you enjoyed Angela's Ashes and 'Tis, and now you're yearning for more, this may not be for you. But if you want a winding invigorating journey of a memoir, pick this one up and you won't be able to put it down. Malachy's knack for storytelling is immediately evident. At times you may wonder if some of these tales may be invented (or at least tinged with a bit of embellishment for effect)... who cares! They're captivating. The only thing better than reading about this life would be to sit on a bar stool next to the author and hear him recall it all in person.
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