Frank McCourt continues to charm readers with his latest memoir, Teacher Man (2005), culling anecdotes from 30 years of teaching in New York public high schools into a book Philip Lopate calls “an enthralling work of autobiographical storytelling.” Fellow memoirist Mary Karr notes that McCourt’s “lyrical Irish voice will draw comparisons to Joyce. It’s that seductive, that hilarious.”

A self-professed “late bloomer, a johnny-come-lately,” McCourt burst to prominence with Angela’s Ashes (1996), a memoir that finds redemption in hardship and won the first-time author a Pulitzer Prize. McCourt picked up his life story with ‘Tis: A Memoir (1999), which narrates his first years in America after moving from Ireland at the age of 19.

My first book, Angela’s Ashes, was published in 1996 when I was sixty-six, the second, ‘Tis, in 1999 when I was sixty-nine. At that age it’s a wonder I was able to lift the pen at all. New friends of mine (recently acquired because of my ascension to the best-seller lists) had published books in their twenties. Striplings.

So, what took you so long?

I was teaching, that’s what took me so long.

— Frank McCourt, Teacher Man

Underwritten by Union Bank of California