[The following review highlights the biographical progression in A Monk Swimming.]

In Angela's Ashes, the author's older brother Frank McCourt recounted the misery and heartbreak of growing up in Limerick, Ireland, in the 1930s and '40s. Now it's Malachy's turn [in A Monk Swimming] to tell the story of his own immigration to New York City in 1952 and how he started on his American dream by working on the docks. Before long his dire need to quench his thespian thirst takes him to the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where he finds "there is no difference between the rich and the poor, except poverty." Soon he's acting in plays, appearing on the Jack Paar Show and becoming a partner in a saloon called, of course, Malachy's. He hooks up with a "Jewish Presbyterian" woman named Linda, quickly marries her and within a year they have two children. But marriage has anything but a steadying effect on McCourt. His virulent alcoholism and need for attention destroy his marriage as he leaps around the globe trying to escape his responsibilities—much as his namesake father had done. Along the way we are treated to hilarious encounters with actors Richard Harris and Robert Mitchum in Hollywood, and witness McCourt seducing young maidens in Ibiza. For good measure, there's also a bit of gold smuggling and whoring in India. This is a book that shows Malachy the blasphemer at his best, ridiculing the contributions of the British to the world ("Bloodshed, Snobocracy, and Bureaucracy") and condemning the supposed sexual proclivities of the late Francis Cardinal Spellman ("the Cardinal of Vaseline"). The memoir, which covers ground through 1963, will have readers smiling and laughing constantly. And although likely destined for the bestseller lists, the book, with its frequent references to drinking and whoring, may shock those who worshipped Angela's Ashes.