Tis: A Memoir

Tis A Memoir by Frank McCourt (based on 591 customer reviews)

(Paperback)
Author: Frank McCourt
Publisher: Scribner

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Most useful review as voted by customers:
86 out of 91 people found the following review helpful.
Review Date: 11/26/99

Tis Not Angela, Nor Should It, Or Could It Be

Angela's Ashes was a unique accomplishment on many levels. Tis was doomed before it ever came out because it would suffer by comparison. However, this is still a great read by an interesting man who has great sensitivity to dialogue, and makes some stinging social observations with great subtlety. The books cannot be compared unless you have strong feelings about the skill the writer had, or did not have in either volume. Is the language rougher, yes, this is a man describing his life, not a child. Does he have opinions that are black and white, with little room for gray at times, yes. Part of the problem with moving from one book to the next, is that the memories of a child, and terrible memories at that, are a powerful force to draw you in, and cause one to feel great sympathy and pain for the child. Then the child becomes a man, and it's much more difficult to carry the same empathy from the first book to the second. In fact I don't think it is possible. If you have read neither book, read this first, and then Angela's Ashes. The books change dramatically when you do. The harsh criticism of the man becomes infinitely more complex and difficult if you learn of the childhood that was his formative years. Most autobiographies, or biographies cover a life, not pieces of a life that in this case are still unfolding. The abrupt change from book one to book two is caused, I believe, because they are bound separately. If he had covered the same period in his life with a single book it would have been more comfortable for the reader. I am glad that he did break his life up, as Angela's Ashes will forever remain a book that will gain the title of a "Classic". Book one was brilliant, it was the author's first, it won The Pulitzer, it one other awards, it is about to be shown as a major motion picture. There is no one that can follow that act #1. Frank McCourt is a great writer who I wish had come to us sooner. I hope he lives to be a hundred so I may selfishly read as much as possible of what he writes.

75 out of 76 people found the following review helpful.
Review Date: 1/20/00

Beautiful book, sorrowful story

This is a wonderful book, but it requires that you remove yourself from your negative impressions of Frank as a young man, and enjoy the beatiful story telling of Frank McCourt, as an author. As I read the criticism of this book by other readers, I am dumbfounded that people can critize the book because they don't like the character. The readers complain that they don't like the way McCourt behaved in America. These are complaints against a man and his actions, not against the novel. The subject matter may be upsetting, but the writing is still beautiful. It is utterly unfair to say that one loved Angela's Ashes because they liked the innocent boy Frank, but didn't like 'Tis because they didn't like the man he grew into. This book is brutally honest on McCourt's part. Angela's Ashes was equally disturbing in subject matter and its description of poverty, but the story was told through the innocence of youth and a child. In 'Tis the subject matter can be equally disturbing, but the story is now told through the eyes of an adult and the innocence is lost. This is the sign of a remarkable author, who can take his readers with him through is life and share the events as they appeared to him at the time. It is unrealistic to expect the poor child growing up on the Lane in Limerick to instantly grow into a noble and refined gentleman the way these readers expect him to. This book tells a disturbing and honest story of a man coming of age as an immigrant in New York.

For all of you complaining that you don't like the book because Frank swears, sleeps around, drinks too much and loses interest in his wife, please don't confuse dislike for a disturbing subject matter for dislike for a work of literature.

37 out of 44 people found the following review helpful.
Review Date: 12/5/99

A Natural Progression

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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