"Angela's Ashes is riveting for the sheer horror of escalating human tragedy. Just rented the movie and listened to my 11-year-old son repeat over and over, �just when you think it can't get any worse...it does�. The book is far more graphic and not at all for the faint of heart. Malachy Sr., who loves his children desperately, is incredible in his alcoholism but even more incredible in his confused indifference to the suffering of his family. Angela is simultaneously pathetic and heroic possessing all the destructive sarcasm of her pretentiously proud mother and sister with an ability to do what is necessary to ensure her survival along with 4 of her 7 children. Denial kills 3 children and a marriage, while the want of the most basic human contact turns a mother to incest. Miraculously, Frank survives and even thrives, driven by the things that his father did not possess, common sense, the gratification of a hard days work, sobriety, and I would argue literary genius."
James P. Crowley, Resident Scholar
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