Book description
A third memoir from the author of the huge international bestsellers
'Angela's Ashes' and ''Tis'. In 'Teacher Man', Frank McCourt details his
illustrious, amusing, and sometimes rather bumpy years as an English
teacher in the public high schools of New York City.
Frank McCourt arrived in New York as a young, impoverished and
idealistic Irish boy - but who crucially had an American passport,
having been born in Brooklyn. He didn't know what he wanted except to
stop being hungry and to better himself. On the subway he watched
students carrying books. He saw how they read and underlined and wrote
things in the margin and he liked the look of this very much. He joined
the New York Public Library and every night when he came back from his
hotel work he would sit up reading the great novels.
Building his confidence and his determination, he talked his way into
NYU and gained a literature degree and so began a teaching career that
was to last thirty years, working in New York's public high schools.
Frank estimates that he probably taught 12,000 children during this time
and it is on this relationship between teacher and student that he
reflects in 'Teacher Man', the third in his series of memoirs.
The New York high school is a restless, noisy and unpredictable place
and Frank believes that it was his attempts to control and cajole these
thousands of children into learning and achieving something for
themselves that turned him into a writer. At least once a day someone
would put up their hand and shout 'Mr. McCourt, Mr. McCourt, tell us
about Ireland, tell us about how poor you were…' Through sharing his own
life with these kids he learnt the power of narrative storytelling, and
out of the invaluable experience of holding 12,000 people's attention
came 'Angela's Ashes'.
Frank McCourt was a legend in such schools as Stuyvesant high school
- long before he became the figure he is now, he would receive letters
from former students telling him how much his teaching influenced and
inspired them - and now in 'Teacher Man' he shares his reminiscences of
those thirty years as well as revealing how they led to his own success
with 'Angela's Ashes' and ''Tis'. 'McCourt's gift for mellifluous
storytelling means that his tales
of jubilation and disillusionment never disappoint.' Daily Telegraph
'Warm, anecdotal, life-affirming stuff.' Sunday Times
'McCourt says teachers are undervalued but maybe if there were more
like him the complaint wouldn't arise.' Mail on Sunday Frank McCourt's
first book, 'Angela's Ashes' won the Pulitzer Prize and the National
Book Award; it has sold 1. 3 million copies in its Flamingo editions
alone and tens of millions world-wide. For many years a writing teacher
at Stuyvesant High School, McCourt performed with his brother Malachy in
a musical review about their Irish youth. He lives in New York.
