Frank McCourt taught for thirty years in various New York City high schools and in city colleges. His first book was Angela's Ashes, a memoir of his childhood. It won the 1997 Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics' Circle Award, the Los Angeles Times Award and the Royal Society for Literature Award amongst others, and rapidly became a bestseller, topping all charts worldwide for over three years. Frank McCourt is also the author of the play The Irish and How They Got That Way. He lives in New York.

From the British and American reviews:

'Powerful and haunting . . .'Tis will cement McCourts reputation as an accomplished and important writer.'
San Francisco Chronicle

'McCourt dazzles us once again'
Entertainment Weekly

"Tis is the update of Frankie's story - his life as a bellhop, toilet cleaner, soldier, warehouseman and finally teacher. His many fans will want to catch up with his family story, and it is all here, too, funny-sad and bittersweet. Frank McCourt readers will never have enough of their master's voice.'
Express

"Tis is written at a tremendous pace, which makes it exhilarating to read, and is full of wry, self-deprecating humour. Some episodes - experiences at Fort Dix of a Catch 22 type; training Ivan, the black German shepherd dog - are very funny set pieces. Frank himself is brought into sharp relief, in spite of all the clowning, but his head is, as he puts it, often "full of dark clouds". The clouds are dark because of his rage at the injustice of life. Bursting with gusto, unflinchingly direct and with subject matter so rich it would have done for three volumes.'
Literary Review

'With its joys and sorrows, its melancholy and its laughter, 'Tis is a dignified and moving successor to Angela's Ashes!
Sunday Independent

'That magnificent voice is back'
Boston Globe

'Gloriously life-affirming . . . McCourt is not only an acute observer of his own life but has been blessed with an ability to banish self-absorption by his innate interest in a motley crew of supporting characters. McCourt does not shy away from his fraught relationship with his alcoholic father and his loving, if difficult, mother. But happy endings are a device and McCourt's honesty compels his story to aspire
to something better, more authentic.'
Glasgow Herald

'The lyrical voice that told, with sadness and humour, of the family's gut-wrenching poverty in Limerick is as compelling as ever.'
Woman's Journal

'Frank McCourt is still an irresistible hero, a sweet and vulnerable but iron-willed lad with an unerring eye for character, detail and the way things are. 'Tis a grand book.'
Chicago Sun Times

'Full of comic and rueful touches . . . McCourt excels at set pieces, and has a real ear for accents and voices, and some of his accounts of learning how not to be torn to pieces by adolescents whose one object in life appears to be to destroy
their teacher and acquire no education, are very funny indeed.'
Spectator