Malachy McCourt

A treasure chest of never-before-collected essays from Frank McCourt, Pulitzer Prize–winning memoirist, and his boisterous brother Malachy, publishing on the 30th anniversary of Angela’s Ashes, with a foreword by Colum McCann In 1996, a retired New York City high school English teacher published a memoir that took the publishing world by storm. Angela’s Ashes, the story of Frank McCourt’s childhood in Ireland, was a bold account of poverty and family tragedy, suffused with humor and compassion. It went on to sell over ten million copies and won the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award. Frank McCourt was suddenly an internationally celebrated memoirist, a writer who had invigorated the genre. But most readers didn’t know that Angela’s Ashes wasn’t Frank’s first published writing. For years, he and his actor brother Malachy contributed a column to a neighborhood newspaper called The West Side Spirit. Malachy, himself a bestselling writer, also contributed to Our Town, Irish America, and The Southampton Review. And Frank went on to write for prominent publications including The New Yorker, The New York Times, Esquire, Life, and Rolling Stone. Sez I To Myself collects the best of those essays and works of journalism. Here the brothers McCourt tackle parades and pubs, classrooms and churches, the immigrant experience, loss, 9/11, the writing life, and more. This is a charming, tender, and insightful collection, a welcome new book from two masterful and much-loved writers.

BACK IN PRINT "A rollicking good read that, as the Irish say, would make a dead man laugh." --Philadelphia InquirerMalachy 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

Before he runs out of time, Irish bon vivant Malachy McCourt shares his views on death - sometimes hilarious and often poignant - and on what will or won't happen after his last breath is drawn. During the course of his life, Malachy McCourt practically invented the single's bar; was a pioneer in talk radio, a soap opera star, a best-selling author; a gold smuggler, a political activist, and a candidate for governor of the state of New York. It seems that the only two things he hasn't done are stick his head into a lion's mouth and die. Since he is allergic to cats, he decided to write about the great hereafter and answer the question on most minds: What's so great about it anyhow? In Death Need Not Be Fatal, McCourt also trains a sober eye on the tragedies that have shaped his life: the deaths of his sister and twin brothers; the real story behind Angela's famous ashes; and a poignant account of the death of the man who left his mother, brothers, and him to nearly die in squalor. McCourt writes with deep emotion of the staggering losses of all three of his brothers, Frank, Mike, and Alphie. In his inimitable way, McCourt takes the grim reaper by the lapels and shakes the truth out of him. As he rides the final blocks on his Rascal scooter, he looks too at the prospect of his own demise with emotional clarity and insight. In this beautifully rendered memoir, McCourt shows us how to live life to its fullest, how to grow old without acting old, and how to die without regret.

In his book, DEATH NEED NOT BE FATAL, McCourt explores the role death has played and continues to play in his life and in the world. From the dead babies and starving children in the Limerick of his childhood, to Angela's famous ashes, to the deaths of McCourt's brothers Frank and Mike - and McCourt's own impending demise - the Grim Reaper has been a constant companion and reminder of what is important, and what's not. McCourt writes that, as he draws closer to death, his perception of death has become crystal clear. When it occurs, he does not plan to pass away, pass on, or cross over. He's not going to make the supreme sacrifice or come to an untidy end; he is not going to be laid to rest, meet his maker, or go to his eternal reward. He is not going to breath his last, bite the dust, kick the bucket, or buy the farm; he's not going to turn up his toes, join the silent majority, become a landowner, take a dirt nap, push up daisies, play a harp, take a taxi, give up his ghost, feed the worms, enter the sweet hereafter, or shuffle off the mortal coil. He plans to die.

This two-man show is a bubbling stew of humor with a dash of poignancy to sharpen the flavor. A grand crowd pleaser whenever performed, the Blaguards is a story of immigration, triumph over hardship and the love of a family.

The only photography book to document the world of Limerick, Ireland, as lived by families during the time of the McCourts. Frank McCourt's Pulitzer Prize-winning autobiography Angela's Ashes continues to sell incredibly well since its publication in 1996. Angela's Ashes is one of the greatest memoirs of our age, as author Frank McCourt recounts a childhood of poverty and pain in Limerick, Ireland during the 1930s and 40s. Since its release in 1996, readers have longed to know this world better, and it is with the publication of Through Irish Eyes, that they can see first-hand just how the other half lived. Through a beautifully curated collection of archival photographs presented alongside detailed captions and literary quotes, Through Irish Eyes shows us a world that few who did not live it have ever known. Here we see the beautiful and rugged landscape of the countryside juxtaposed with the darkness of urban poverty in the city's underside. We are shown a way of life that no longer exists, but is forever captured in these unsentimental images of the Irish way, its people and their struggles, and their small and hard-wrought joys.

Characters: 2 male Bare stage A Couple of Blaguards, a two-man show by literary greats Frank and Malachy McCourt, is a bubbling stew of their well-known humor with a dash of poignancy to sharpen the flavor. A comedic springboard for Angela's Ashes, 'Tis, and Malachy's A Monk Swimmin', this brilliantly structured comedy is a proven crowd-pleaser offering solid entertainment. Similar to Frank McCourt's best-selling novels, the story follows the trials of the young McCourts in poverty-stricken Limerick, Ireland, to their journey to the U. S. and Brooklyn, New York, where the young men learn to incorporate the day-to-day lessons of their hard Irish past. A story of immigration, triumph over hardship, and the love between family, A Couple of Blaguards is a theatrical event that will find a place in the heart of every audience member. "MEMORABLE! The brothers McCourt bring their two best selling books to the stage...the show has a roguish appeal" - Peter Marks, The New York Times "An unholy amount of charm!" - The Washington Post "Mixes the sweetness and kick of an Irish coffee." - Newsday

Bestselling author Malachy McCourt recounts the story of Ireland's timeless symbol of loyalty, friendship, and love, a ring design of two clasped hands that is worn by millions worldwide. Following the success of his Running Press titles Danny Boy and Voices of Ireland , McCourt explores this beloved icon of Irish heritage through vivid anecdotes, charming folk tales, and recent documented incidents. Said to have been first crafted more than 400 years ago in a fishing village on Galway Bay, there is much more to the story of the Claddagh ring than simple popular history, and McCourt tracks it down and recounts it with his stellar storytelling finesse.

Malachy McCourt, bestselling author of A Monk Swimming, shares the extraordinary story of how he went from living the headlong and heedless life of a world-class drunk to becoming a sober, loving father and grandfather, still happily married after thirty-five years. Bawdy and funny, naked and moving, told in the same inimitable voice that left readers all over the world wondering what happened next in A Monk Swimming, Singing My Him Song is "told with the frankness and honesty for which McCourt has become renowned" (New York Daily News).

An entertaining memoir of a rollicking life in New York of an Irish immigrant.