"""McCourt has created an unsparing portrait of a man, and a time, that's richer and more devastating than his earlier work. 'Tis is a better book than Angela's Ashes"" (Esquire). Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt's poignant memoir of his Irish childhood, left readers and critics alike wanting to hear more about this brilliant raconteur's incredible life. Picking up where that Pulitzer Prize winner left off, 'Tis begins in 1949--when nineteen-year-old Frank arrives in America with dreams of a better life--and tracks his journey from impoverished immigrant with rotten teeth, infected eyes, and no formal education to college-educated schoolteacher. It is a tale of survival as vivid, harrowing, and often hilarious as Angela's Ashes, for Frank had the same invincible spirit at nineteen that he had at eight and still has today."