Frank McCourt Interview
Pulitzer Prize for Biography
June 19, 1999
Washington, D.C.
A writer risen from the ashes
You've certainly addressed this question in your first book, but to begin with, what was your childhood like?
Frank McCourt: It was rich in the sense that...
Even though we were poor, at the lowest level, even below the lowest economic level, we were always excited. It was rich in the sense that we had a lot to look up to, to look forward to, a lot to aspire to, a lot to dream about. But in economic circumstances it was desperate. It was Calcutta with rain. At least they're warm in Calcutta. But it was desperate because of certain things, ingredients like my father being an alcoholic, my mother having too many babies in too short a time, no work available in Ireland, and even when my father did get a job he drank the wages. Then there was the harsh kind of schooling we had with school masters who ruled with a stick and then because of the overwhelming presence of the church, which imbued us with fear all the time. So it was fear, dampness, poverty, alcoholism, fear of the church, fear of the school masters, fear in general.
More at http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/mcc1int-1
