Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > McCourt, Frank - Malcolm Jones Jr. (essay date 25 August 1997)

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Malcolm Jones Jr. (essay date 25 August 1997)

SOURCE: "From 'Ashes' to Stardom," in Newsweek, August 25, 1997, pp. 66-70.

[In the following essay, Jones discusses the popular and literary success of Angela's Ashes, describing the book as "the publishing event of the decade."]

Frank McCourt is not without sin. But no one could confess with more charm. In the course of defending the accuracy of his memoir, Angela's Ashes, McCourt admits that he erred at least once, a mistake he discovered last October when he traveled back to Limerick, the Irish city where his Pulitzer Prize-winning account of growing up poor is set. He was autographing books in a bookstore when a man approached and introduced himself as Willie Harrell, one of the boys that little Frankie McCourt grew up with. "Weak and leaning on a stick and looking like he was 100 years old," Harrell congratulated McCourt on a fine job of writing. Then he leaned across the...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Malcolm Jones Jr. (review date 2 September 1996)
   2. Denis Donoghue (review date 15 September 1996)
   3. Michiko Kakutani (review date 17 September 1996)
   4. Nina King (review date 29 September 1996)
   5. Malcolm Jones Jr. (essay date 25 August 1997)
4. Copyright