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Overview
BACK IN PRINT!
"A rollicking good read that, as the Irish say, would make a dead man laugh." ―Philadelphia Inquirer
Malachy McCourt was already famous as an actor, saloon-keeper, and late-night television personality when Angela's Ashes was published. Brother Frank's book introduced the incorrigible, indomitable young Malachy to a worldwide audience that was charmed, and clamored for more.
Frank's book was a hard act to follow, but Malachy's delightful memoir, which picked up where Angela's Ashes left off, won critical acclaim and commercial success.
Born in Brooklyn, and raised in the lanes of Limerick, Malachy returned to New York in 1952, at age 20. After stints in the Air Force and as a longshoreman, he parlayed his gifts of gab and conviviality into an ownership position at Malachy's―the first singles' bar―located around the corner from the Barbizon Hotel for young women, whose glamorous residents frequently repaired to Malachy's for a tipple and flirt.
Malachy's madcap, manic life ricocheted from higher highs to lower lows as he tried selling Bibles at the beach on Fire Island and smuggling gold in Zurich. He entertained a voracious public on the stage as a member of the Irish Players and was a semi-regular on the Tonight Show with Jack Paar. In these years, he was almost always drunk, almost always chasing (or being chased) by women. His gifts for language and storytelling are so well honed that when you read A Monk Swimming, "You'll laugh uncontrollably . . . You're in the grip of a master raconteur" (Houston Chronicle).
Now the last of the McCourts of Limerick, Malachy reflects on the tumultuous events of the twenty-five years since he wrote A MONK SWIMMING in his Afterword.
"Read it and weep: they don't make lives like this anymore." -The Irish Voice
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781566494175 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Welcome Rain Publishers LLC |
| Publication date: | 10/26/2021 |
| Pages: | 312 |
| Sales rank: | 851,621 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.81(d) |
About the Author
Peter Quinn is a novelist, political historian, and foremost chronicler of New York City. He is the author of Looking for Jimmy: In Search of Irish America and a trilogy of historical detective novels--Hour of the Cat, The Man Who Never Returned, and Dry Bones.
Read an Excerpt
There was always the story in any gathering in Limerick. Be it boys, girls, the men, the women, bald facts were considered cold and inhuman; therefore all storied events had to be wrapped in words. Warm words, serried words, glittering, poetic, harsh, and even blasphemous words.
So the cold evenings were made warm with myths and tales of dirty doings and derring-do, and horrific yarns of the tortures of hell awaiting the evildoer. We the children sat in darkness, shivering in horrored delight, having been told we had two ears and unready tongue.
My father, Malachy, and his chums, Mr. Meehan, Mr. Looney, and Mr. Moran, spun out the silver-gold yarns and, by sheer eloquence, made our miserable surroundings disappear. And my father would sing his patriotic odes to Ireland, like the one about Roddy McCorley going to die on the bridge of Toome. My mother sang droopy love songs like, ``We Are in Love with You, My Heart and I.''
Death brought a silence to our house. First Baby Margaret Mary and then the twins--Eugene at four, and Oliver, four-and-a-half. Poverty killed them. My father left, to go on a lifelong drinking binge, never to come back, and I hated him for depriving me of him. It was many years before my mother sang another droopy love song, because she sank into a deep depression and love fled into the damp, grey Limerick sky, never to return.
The poor will always be with us, it sez in the Bible, and having had the strange privilege of being born into a not poor, but poverty-stricken, family, it became my passionate intention to be always with someone, but, by the living Jesus Christ, I would not be poor or poverty stricken.
I did not like being damp all the time. I did not like being cold and wet in the winter. I did not like looking in windows of shops filled with meats sweets biscuits breads, and my eyes bulging, the mouth aching for the chance to chew on something substantial. I did not like being eaten by fleas, gorging themselves on my bitter blood. I did not like having lice and nits in my hair my arse my armpits my eyebrows and every seam of the trousers and gansey I wore. I didn't like the boils and pimples on my small epidermis, not to mention the shame of scabies and ringworm. I didn't like having badly patched clothes and broken boots that Van Gogh would have sneered at. I didn't like having caked shit in my trousers because they couldn't be washed for the want of a replacement to wear while they were drying. I didn't like being made fun of and sneered at by the upper classes, who had tea and buns in the afternoon and electric light in every room.
I have never liked the smell of the newly made, newly varnished coffins that were brought in to take away our dead forever.
I was a smiley little fella with a raging heart and murderous instincts. One day I would show THEM--yes, you rotten fucking arsehole counter-jumping stuck-up jumped-up whore's-melts nose-holding tuppence-ha'penny-looking-down-on-tuppence snobs. I'll go back to America where I was born and I'll fart in yer faces.
And I did.
What People are Saying About This
These McCourt boyos, the best literary family act since Dumas pere et fils.
Savagely funny, intoxicatingly sad, and wonderfully written.
McCourt...makes his vivid, whimsical, raucous, murderous joy and voice available to the rest of us in tales of riot and glory.
Interviews
On June 1, 1998, barnesandnoble.com on AOL was pleased to welcome Malachy McCourt to our Authors@aol series. Malachy McCourt is a writer and an actor who has performed on stage and television, and in such films as "The Devil's Own," "She's the One," and "The Bonfire of the Vanities." His brother Frank is the author of ANGELA'S ASHES. Malachy McCourt's memoir is called A MONK SWIMMING.
AkioBN: Mr. McCourt, pleased to have you with us tonight.
Malachy McCourt: You are? [laughs]
AkioBN: Well...
Malachy McCourt: You must be mad! [laughs]
AkioBN: Yes, I think we are. If you're as ready as you're ever going to be, shall we turn it over to our audience?
Malachy McCourt: Let's turn it over to the audience, whoever he or she is!
Question: Have you been greatly encouraged as a writer by the recent minor Renaissance in Irish and Irish-American literature?
Malachy McCourt: Very heavy question for what I would consider a personal memoir. I don't consider myself a writer; all I did was tell a few stories and called upon the old Irish tradition of storytelling.
Question: In writing your memoir, did you bear in mind the stereotype of the drunken, cavorting New York Irish American? How did it affect your writing, if at all?
Malachy McCourt: [laughs] I did my best to be the best stereotype of the best drunk I could be. Of course, I am joking. The fact is that I drank a lot and behaved in the most ludicrous fashion. But I was too drunk to realize that I was acting the stereotype. Of course, I was too brilliant to be the stereotypical drunk. (I'm renowned for my modesty.)
Question: How did ANGELA'S ASHES resonate with you, and with the rest of your family?
Malachy McCourt: It certainly is a good word, "resonate." And it did clear the air of a lot of confusion, inherent anger, and despair, and allowed us to reunite joyfully as brothers and resonated well. It was a classic work by a classic man.
Question: What was it like to go from poverty to the superficial lusts of the entertainment industry?
Malachy McCourt: [laughs] Heavenly!
Question: Given what your mother went through, was it hard relating to American women? Were they different from the Irish?
Malachy McCourt: I found it very difficult to relate to women at all, because after a certain age the Irish male is expected to sort of disappear to the pub, and the women have their place in the kitchen. Having these role models, we hardly used the word "love" at all with our families. My first marriage, I never said, "I love you" to my wife, children, and grandchildren. It was hard, sissyish. Now, with my second marriage, I can say that. I can say that I love women without being patronizing or sexist.
Question: Malachy, I have not had a chance to read your book yet but am looking forward to it! Can I surmise that you had to deal with alcoholism?
Malachy McCourt: Yes, absolutely. I'm a recovering alcoholic. I haven't had a drink in 13 years.
Question: There are so many people, myself included, that would love to talk with you and Frank in person. I have so many questions. Would this ever be possible?
Malachy McCourt: I'm going on a book tour to all the major cities; that would be the only time. I've changed over the years. Frank depicted me as a cute, cuddly kind of guy. Now I'm 250 pounds, and no one could pick me up. You might not even want to talk to me in person! (If you'd like to see what I look like, then tune in to "Good Morning America" at 8am tomorrow morning.)
Question: I am a recovering alcoholic also. How hard was it for you to quit, and what words do you have to share with us that have just started?
Malachy McCourt: It's simple, but it is not easy. Therefore, do not pick up your first drink. For me, I just say I never drink when I am sober. How's that for an idiotic statement? But it's true. A day at a time, and do not drink that first drink. And every single alcoholic in the world recovers. It's best to do it when you're alive. And then you'll write your own memoir.
Question: Are your parents still alive?
Malachy McCourt: No. My mother died in 1981 in New York. She came on a visit, which lasted over 20 years. My father outlived her, and he died in 1986. Next year he would've been 100 if he lived.
Question: Does Guinness really taste different in Ireland than in the States?
Malachy McCourt: Yes it does, because of the water. And don't be asking any more questions like that, or you're going to get me thirsty!
Question: Have Michael and Alphie tried their hands at writing, as now has the other half of the McCourt litter?
Malachy McCourt: [laughs] "Litter," my arse! Alphie is writing poetry and writing songs, and Mike decided...well, to quote Mike himself, "I'm waiting until the rest of you are dead!" He says he's going to do a porno film in our hometown, titled "Debbie Does Limerick."
Question: What's your opinion of the Northern Ireland peace treaty? Think it will last?
Malachy McCourt: It's a mistake to think that it's a peace treaty. It is an agreement to begin a process toward establishing peace among the various communities in Northern Ireland. It will be a difficult and arduous road, because the people on the extremes of both sides, acting on what they consider to be age-old principles, will try to wreck it by armed conflict. It will be a hard job.
Question: Do you ever keep in contact with your friends from Limerick? Like, what happened to Question Quigley? Did you ever see Freddy Liebowitz?
Malachy McCourt: No, I never had contact with the Liebowitzes. With the others, I don't know what happened to them, but we've met people related to them. We met them at various book signings. I imagine Question Quigley is taking part in this, because we have lots of questions.
Question: I'm dating a Limerick boy. Is there anything I should be warned of?
Malachy McCourt: Watch out for him when he slips into a deep Limerick accent -- you're about to be insulted.
Question: With Ireland caught up, economically, with the rest of western Europe for the first time in its history, do you expect the tradition of at least one son of every family emigrating to the U.S. to disappear? Is yours among the last generations to uphold it?
Malachy McCourt: There is a tradition of wandering that we share with the Jewish folks. It's hard to keep us settled in one place. But I do think that immigration as we know it is at an end. The economic need for it has disappeared for a lot of classes. There's still a lot of poor people in Ireland, but they won't have any choice but to go to England, and they'll have their own set of difficulties there.
AkioBN: Mr. McCourt, that was a lot of fun. Thanks for lending us your time.
Malachy McCourt: Ah well, it was fun for me, too, and thank you so much for inviting me to participate! Blessings on your craniums. A day at a time.
AkioBN: Erin go bragh! Did I say that right?
Malachy McCourt: You did! Ireland forever!
AkioBN: Goodnight.
Malachy McCourt: Goodnight!