During the Sunday evening news I found out the sad, sad news that one of my favourite writers, Frank McCourt, died last night in Manhattan of mestastic melanoma at the age of 78.
His Pulitzer Prize winning memoir, Angela's Ashes, is one of the most the most touching and amazing books I have ever read. One of his other novels 'Tis was equally as moving. Mixing a dry, observant humor with the unbelieveable bleakness of growing up in the Irish ghetto, McCourt created masterpieces that were impossible to put down.
It's rare that a writer touches and affects me so deeply, that to lose one that has touched me so greatly leaves me sad with a strong sense of loss. While he may have never written another word, just knowing that his great mind was still on this earth was a comfort in a world where books like The Secret, murder mysteries, false memoirs and vampires abound. McCourt was real and his works were genuine.
A former teacher at a New York public school, he undoubtedly touched lives everywhere through his lessons and novels.
Mr. McCourt, you will be missed.