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Nearly a decade ago Frank McCourt became
an unlikely star when, at the age of sixty-six, he burst onto
the literary scene with Angela’s Ashes, the Pulitzer
Prize-winning memoir of his childhood in Limerick, Ireland.
Then came ’Tis, his glorious account of his early
years in New York.
Now, here at last, is McCourt’s
long-awaited book about how his thirty-year teaching career
shaped his second act as a writer. Teacher Man is also
an urgent tribute to teachers everywhere. In bold and spirited
prose featuring his irreverent wit and heartbreaking honesty,
McCourt records the trials, triumphs and surprises he faces
in public high schools around New York City. His methods anything
but conventional, McCourt creates a lasting impact on his
students through imaginative assignments (he instructs one
class to write “An Excuse Note from Adam or Eve to God”),
singalongs (featuring recipe ingredients as lyrics), and field
trips (imagine taking twenty-nine rowdy girls to a movie in
Times Square!).
McCourt struggles to find his way in the
classroom and spends his evenings drinking with writers and
dreaming of one day putting his own story to paper. Teacher
Man shows McCourt developing his unparalleled ability
to tell a great story as, five days a week, five periods per
day, he works to gain the attention and respect of unruly,
hormonally charged or indifferent adolescents. McCourt’s
rocky marriage, his failed attempt to get a Ph.D. at Trinity
College, Dublin, and his repeated firings due to his propensity
to talk back to his superiors ironically lead him to New York’s
most prestigious school, Stuyvesant High School, where he
finally finds a place and a voice. “Doggedness,”
he says, is “not as glamorous as ambition or talent
or intellect or charm, but still the one thing that got me
through the days and nights.”
For McCourt, storytelling itself is the
source of salvation, and in Teacher Man the journey
to redemption—and literary fame—is an exhilarating
adventure.
Frank McCourt taught in the New
York City public schools for twenty-seven years, the last
seventeen of which were spent at Stuyvesant High School in
Manhattan. After retiring from teaching, Frank and his brother,
Malachy, performed their two-man show, A Couple of Blaguards,
a musical review about their Irish Youth. In September 1996,
Scribner published Frank’s childhood memoir, Angela’s
Ashes, which spent 117 weeks on the New York Times
bestseller list. After more than sixty-five printings, there
are over 2,325,000 copies in print in North America alone.
The book is available in eighteen countries. Frank McCourt
was the winner of the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for Biography, the
National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) Award in Biography/Autobiography,
The Boston Book Review’s Non-Fiction prize, the ABBY
Award, and the Los Angeles Times Book Award. Time
Magazine and Newsweek chose Angela’s Ashes
as the best nonfiction book of 1996. The hardcover of Angela’s
Ashes spent 23 weeks at #1 on the New York Times
bestseller list. The Alan Parker film of Angela’s
Ashes, starring Emily Watson, was released to wide acclaim
in 1999.
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