I’ve realized, somewhat belatedly, that in my post about not reading enough fiction I erred in adding Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt to the list. My conscious brain realized that it was biography/memoir, but my subconscious brain always confuses McCourt with Ian McEwan, who actually does right fiction.
Angela’s Ashes is still more narrative and novelistic than anything I’ve read in awhile. Which is leading toward a bit of a problem. Young Frank McCourt is so hungry throughout his Irish childhood, lived in grinding poverty, that all he talks about is wanting food. And he rhapsodizes about it so much, repeating the same delicious-sounding phrases over and over, that all I want to eat now is mashed potatoes with salt and butter, boiled cabbage, ham, milk straight from a cow, fried bread (whatever that is) and apples stolen from an orchard. I broke down and had the potatoes last night, as salty as I could stand them, and see cabbage in my near future. The rest is going to be a little harder to come by.
