Book 90 - A Year of Magical Learning

Reflection Title – Your Story Matters, Share it with the World!

Book: Angela’s Ashes: A Memoir by Frank McCourt

Book Description- So begins the luminous memoir of Frank McCourt, born in Depression-era Brooklyn to recent Irish immigrants and raised in the slums of Limerick, Ireland. Frank’s mother, Angela, has no money to feed the children since Frank’s father, Malachy, rarely works, and when he does he drinks his wages. Yet Malachy—exasperating, irresponsible, and beguiling—does nurture in Frank an appetite for the one thing he can provide: a story. Frank lives for his father’s tales of Cuchulain, who saved Ireland, and of the Angel on the Seventh Step, who brings his mother babies. Perhaps it is story that accounts for Frank’s survival. Wearing rags for diapers, begging a pig’s head for Christmas dinner and gathering coal from the roadside to light a fire, Frank endures poverty, near-starvation and the casual cruelty of relatives and neighbors—yet lives to tell his tale with eloquence, exuberance, and remarkable forgiveness. Angela’s Ashes, imbued on every page with Frank McCourt’s astounding humor and compassion, is a glorious book that bears all the marks of a classic.

Reflection:

In the introduction of this book, the author (Frank McCourt), talks about how he didn’t know that he could write about his own life. He taught writing as a career, but he always struggled with his own writing and could never seemingly find his voice. That changed when he finally gave himself permission to share what he knows best, his own story. The rest, as they say, is history. Angela’s Ashes went on to win a Pulitzer Prize and is such a unique story that only Frank could tell, because it is about Frank’s life. It is witty, sometimes dark, challenging, depressing, uplifting…it is life!

I recently saw a study that said 55% of Americans think their own life is worthy of becoming a book or a movie. I was watching a talk show when I heard this, and many of the hosts on the panel were shocked and outraged by hearing this number. They chimed in that they thought it was so arrogant of people to think so highly of themselves that their story was special enough to be turned into a book.

Sadly, I think a lot of us feel the same way deep down inside. We think we aren’t interesting, and not worthy enough to share our story with the world. That’s exactly the way that Frank McCourt felt before he finally summoned up the courage to be brave and write the story that only he could share.

Angela’s Ashes really isn’t about anything in particular, and that’s the beauty of it in my opinion. I didn’t learn a ton of life lessons, and it didn’t have some transformational effect on my life. What it did do is help me to understand the life of Frank McCourt as seen through his eyes. That alone was special enough for me.

These days, it feels like most of the stories we consume live in fantasy land about superheroes, vampires, magical worlds, avatars, and the marvel universe. Don’t get me wrong, these larger-than-life stories and are so fun to watch and certainly have their place in this world. That said, I want to hear more stories about the Frank McCourt’s of the world. We are all worthy of having our stories told and heard. I hope that in the next 100 years, the next time that poll is taken that 100% of Americans feel their life is worthy of a book or movie. I then hope that some of them take that risk and share it with the world.

I’m ready to listen!

Question: What’s holding you back from sharing your story with this world?

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Links:

What is The Year of Magical Learning? An Introduction

YOML Podcast Discussion - Angela's Ashes

YOML Bookstore - Angela’s Ashes: A Memoir by Frank McCourt