Frank McCourt and the happy ending

"Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood." That's the dramatic beginning of Angela's Ashes, a book that made its author, Frank McCourt, rich and famous. What I really liked about Frank McCourt, apart from the fact that he grew up in Limerick, as I did, was that he wrote his first book at 66. And it became an international bestseller!

Special Report: Frank McCourt When you re-read that first sentence of Angela's Ashes, you might hear echoes of Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, which begins: "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Frank McCourt knew his Tolstoy because he taught creative writing and English for 30 years in New York. But before he became a teacher, he had to survive life in Depression-era Ireland. His memories of near-starvation, searching the pubs for his alcoholic father, his mother's fierce love and his dream of getting to America struck a chord with people all over the world.

Frank got to America, worked, retired and then wrote the story of his life with eloquence, humour and remarkable forgiveness. His childhood was miserable, but because he had read and taught Tolstoy, he was able to turn unhappiness into something that sold ten million books and, paradoxically, made many people happy. The teacher and storyteller Frank McCourt died in the land of his dreams on Sunday. It was a happy ending.