I heard Frank McCourt give a reading from Angela’s Ashes at the Palos Verdes Estates Library a number of years ago. His wife’s family lived in Palos Verdes. and it felt like a small town get together in that old library. He was incredibly charming and funny and inspiring. (Not all writers you might admire are like this in person – which always surprises me. The very first writer I heard give a talk was Ray Bradbury and I thought all writers would be that generous and inspiring. Not so.)

There’s a wonderful piece about McCourt, who died Sunday, in today’s New York Times  by Eric Konigsberg, quoting him, when getting advice from fellow teachers on not revealing anything about his life and that his life was all he had,  McCourt said, “My life saved my life.”  (That’s such a great sentence for writers to think about.)

Somewhere else I read about the hard time he had finding the voice for Angela’s Ashes, and how many years he struggled with that search. Then one day he listened to a grandchild who was speaking in very short declarative sentences and he realized that was the voice he needed.