Frank McCourt, 1930-2009. R.I.P.

Frank McCourt, the author of Angela's Ashes, has died of malignant melanoma. He was 78 years old.

Angela's Ashes was released in 1996. It was a memoir of McCourt's childhood in Limerick, Ireland. McCourt would win the National Book Critics Circle Award and a Pulitzer Prize for Angela's Ashes. In 1999, it would be adapted into a movie starring Robert Carlyle and Emily Watson. Not bad for someone who had been a New York City school teacher and was essentially working on a retirement project.

However, some in Limerick disputed McCourt's account of his childhood. But this did little to deter the affections of the chattering classes on the Upper West Side.

McCourt followed Angela's Ashes with another memoir Tis (1998) which documented his life in New York City. His last book Teacher Man (2005) documented his career as a New York City public school teacher.