Rating: 
Summary: Great fun and clever use of language
Review: We really enjoyed this tale of Malachy McCourt's life. The honesty of his words ring true. This book is an adventure, a comedy, a drama all wrapped into one.
Rating: 
Summary: Abysmal!
Review: Wonder what Frank's younger brother Malachy (or is it Malady?) has been up to? He's gone off and written himself a book with the thought that those of us who loved Angela's Ashes will at least pony up the $16.77 to feed what must be one of the all-time big egos. Malachy's book has none of the charm, poignancy or appeal of the elder McCourt's. Malachy bypasses most of the obvious opportunities to write something worth reading, opting instead to name-drop and describe incredibly boorish feats of bravado (disrobing in a restaurant where he was asked to check his topcoat--gosh, was I impressed!). My advice? Readers-save your dough; Malachy-don't give up your soaps.
Rating: 
Summary: Dealing with the Past: A Less Romantic View
Review: In "A Monk Swimming," Malachy McCourt recounts stories of his less-than-mature response to his awful childhood. His brother Frank, on the other hand, gives us a more refined, crafted, and artistic story. Both versions are worth reading. It's interesting to see how two related people emerged so differently from the same circumstances.I like that Malachy McCourt gives no excuses for his behavior. He's a pretty objective recorder of his exploits; he doesn't pretty them up. He admits he drank too much, abandoned his wife and kids, and searched for some peace (unsuccessfully) through sex. He doesn't glorify himself; at the end, I was left with sadness. He closes with a description of his father and the pain of that relationship. This final chapter is the explanation (though not an excuse) for the rest of the exploits in the book. Frank McCourt is the philosopher while Malachy is the bad kid who has no qualms about telling it like it is. When I read Malachy's version of McCourt history, I thought, 'Ok, poverty is not some romantic world where everyone ends up spouting gorgeous poetry and coming to terms with their past.' Malachy has humor, audacity, and a flare for hyperbole - all these the qualities of a good Irish storyteller. These are stories I could imagine hearing while sitting a bar - stories that are enlarged and enhanced upon each telling. Malachy clearly captures a time and place and a character (himself). Some might not like who he is, but he provides a vivid picture of who he is. He captures, by recounting his escapades, his own tortured response to his childhood.
Rating: 
Summary: Malachy McCourt - waste of space?
Review: This book does not tell the story of a man's life as an adult, but merely documents the destruction of that life. His travels leave a trail of exploitation. I am only reading this story for traces of Frank McCourt. There are occasions where Malachy mentions his despair, but through the countless episodes in which he takes advantage of others, there is no witness, observation or analysis of the situations that he placed himself into. I was disappointed by the numerous mentions of encounters with the famous, unfortunately who have no impact on the story. I do not take pleasure in humour at the tragic expense of others.
Rating:
Summary: Hey, some of us LIKED it
Review: As a child in "Angela's Ashes," Malachy showed the cleverness, the charisma, that his father no doubt had before he fell into a bucket of stout and never resurfaced. Malachy tells with unflinching honesty the tale of a second-generation alcoholic. Some readers seem to have mistaken his bluntness for pride. To me it was obvious that he was full of shame while telling how he repeated his father's mistakes of denial and abandonment. And just because he calls women "fleshpots" while telling old stories doesn't mean he's a misogynist -- read the dedication. It's foolish to expect a book similar to Frank's. Don't make the mistake of expecting siblings to write in tandem. Anyway, I laughed out loud at some of his outrageous tales of woe. And the rest of the time, I marveled at the fact that he survived at all. It's worth a read if you want to see how hard this wounded soul tried to die or be killed before he finally gave up and stopped running. I still think Malachy is fascinating.
Rating:
Summary: An exciting story..to laugh and to cry.
Review: Malachy's got a very different writing compared to Frank, his brother. Malachy is this bloke, kind of rude...he's the MAN who lived "les 400 coups" all over the world. What a rich existence you had Mr McCourt. Your writing is so funny and so sad.
It's also so exciting and so unique.
Sometimes reality is more surreal than fiction and your life is the perfect example. A great book without a doubt. U, Irish, rule! I'll never drink Whiskey with the H, without thinking about this book.
Rating:
Summary: Malachy McCourt - waste of space?
Review: This book does not tell the story of a man's life as an adult, but merely documents the destruction of that life. His travels leave a trail of exploitation. I am only reading this story for traces of Frank McCourt. There are occasions where Malachy mentions his despair, but through the countless episodes in which he takes advantage of others, there is no witness, observation or analysis of the situations that he placed himself into. I was disappointed by the numerous mentions of encounters with the famous, unfortunately who have no impact on the story. I do not take pleasure in humour at the tragic expense of others.
Rating:
Summary: An exciting story..to laugh and to cry.
Review: Malachy's got a very different writing compared to Frank, his brother. Malachy is this bloke, kind of rude...he's the MAN who lived "les 400 coups" all over the world. What a rich existence you had Mr McCourt. Your writing is so funny and so sad.
It's also so exciting and so unique.
Sometimes reality is more surreal than fiction and your life is the perfect example. A great book without a doubt. U, Irish, rule! I'll never drink Whiskey with the H, without thinking about this book.
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
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