Teacher Man: A Memoir by Frank McCourt

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.\n\nNow, 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!).\n\nMcCourt 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."\n\nFor McCourt, storytelling itself is the source of salvation, and in Teacher Man the journey to redemption - and literary fame - is an exhilarating adventure.\n\nEditorial Reviews\n\nThe author of Angela's Ashes and 'Tis has been winning such superlatives since he broke onto the literary scene as a self-proclaimed "old man." In this third volume of memoirs, the Pulitzer laureate turns to one of his first loves, teaching. He describes his sometimes-bumpy coming-of-age in the classroom and explains its integral relationship with his writing career. McCourt's ability to fine-tune even short anecdotes eventually makes readers feel like partners in his apprenticeship.\n\n- bn.com\n\n"McCourt sings, we weep. He speaks, we are transported. The six-hour audiobook is riveting. The production shows exactly how recording can enliven and enhance a text."\n\n- The Christian Science Monitor on Angela's Ashes\n\n- \n\n... McCourt has produced a collection of aphorisms that will grace classroom posters till the last red pen runs dry. ("You'd be better off as a cop. At least you'd have a gun or a stick to defend yourself. A teacher has nothing but his mouth.") And at most, he's described the teacher we all wish we'd had.\n- The Washington Post\n- Ron Charles\n\nThis final memoir in the trilogy that started with Angela's Ashes and continued in 'Tis focuses almost exclusively on McCourt's 30-year teaching career in New York City's public high schools, which began at McKee Vocational and Technical in 1958. His first day in class, a fight broke out and a sandwich was hurled in anger. McCourt immediately picked it up and ate it. On the second day of class, McCourt's retort about the Irish and their sheep brought the wrath of the principal down on him. All McCourt wanted to do was teach, which wasn't easy in the jumbled bureaucracy of the New York City school system. Pretty soon he realized the system wasn't run by teachers but by sterile functionaries. "I was uncomfortable with the bureaucrats, the higher-ups, who had escaped classrooms only to turn and bother the occupants of those classrooms, teachers and students. I never wanted to fill out their forms, follow their guidelines, administer their examinations, tolerate their snooping, adjust myself to their programs and courses of study." As McCourt matured in his job, he found ingenious ways to motivate the kids: have them write "excuse notes" from Adam and Eve to God; use parts of a pen to define parts of a sentence; use cookbook recipes to get the students to think creatively. A particularly warming and enlightening lesson concerns a class of black girls at Seward Park High School who felt slighted when they were not invited to see a performance of Hamlet, and how they taught McCourt never to have diminished expectations about any of his students. McCourt throws down the gauntlet on education, asserting that teaching is more than achieving high test scores. It's about educating, about forming intellects, about getting people to think. McCourt's many fans will of course love this book, but it also should be mandatory reading for every teacher in America. And it wouldn't hurt some politicians to read it, too. (Nov. 15) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.\n\n- Publishers Weekly\n\nHere is the long-anticipated final installment in the trilogy of memoirs by Pulitzer Prize winner McCourt (Angela's Ashes). His previous volumes told the tale of his life through many categories of struggle and triumph, from a poverty-stricken childhood in Limerick to a return to his birthplace, New York City, and his quest there for a better existence. In Teacher Man, however, McCourt focuses upon his particular journey as a teacher in New York City public school classrooms, from his first day in front of a class at a vocational high school in Staten Island-he had not graduated from high school himself but had talked his way into NYU for a college degree covered by the GI Bill-to his accomplishments as a veteran instructor, skilled in unorthodox methods of teaching English and creative writing to exceptional students. McCourt's characteristically vivid storytelling, with his rendering of the distinct and searing voices of particular students, enables his readers to see, hear, and feel this story, a voyage of discovery for students and teacher and, ultimately, all who read this marvelous book. A particular interest in the teaching profession is not required: Teacher Man relates to us all. Every bit as good as Angela's Ashes and 'Tis, this is highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 7/015.]-Mark Bay, Cumberland Coll. Lib., Williamsburg, KY Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.\n\n- Library Journal\n\n"Full of gritty specifics, never preachy, often hilarious, McCourt's third book thrusts you right into the hormones-and-catcalls chaos of the classroom. . . . Along the way, we get the best self-portrait of a public school teacher ever written." - Malcolm Jones, Newsweek\n\n"Teacher Man is, in fact, the best book in the trilogy, an enthralling work of autobiographical storytelling." - Phillip Lopate, Los Angeles Times\n\n"A beguiling, moving story. . . . McCourt describes the teacher we all wish we'd had." - Ron Charles, The Washington Post\n\n"A brilliantly funny, poignant, brilliant hoot of a book." - Diane Roberts, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution\n\n"Teacher Man is simply brilliant." - Jeff Guin, Fort Worth Star-Telegram\n\n"Frank McCourt has done it again.... Teacher Man is an irresistible valedictory, about a man finding his voice in the classroom, on the page and in his soul." - Ben Yagoda, The New York Times Book Review*\n\n"Enthralling." - Phillip Lopate, Los Angeles Times\n\n"As good as writing gets about teaching and learning." - Bob Minzesheimer, USA TODAY\n- From the Publisher\n\nTeaching high school is surely one of the most difficult professions. To hear Frank McCourt tell it--the challenges are devilishly amplified while our admiration for his candor and creativity is certain. McCourt recounts his experiences in New York's urban classrooms with perspective and the indomitable flair of a storyteller. Listeners will be amazed, inspired, and delighted. His thirty-year teaching career is punctuated with small triumphs, pitfalls, and difficult choices, but always candor and respect for his students. McCourt's rendition of the accents of his 1950s' Staten Island students, delivered in his Irish brogue, is a unique treat that a print reader would miss. This is a tidy abridgment, and listeners will enjoy what audio memoirs do best. R.F.W. © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine\n- DEC 05/JAN 06 - AudioFile