Tis Unabridged: A Memoir

FROM THE PULIZER PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR OF THE #1 "NEW YORK TIMES" BESTSELLER "ANGELA'S ASHES"
Frank McCourt's glorious childhood memoir, "Angela's Ashes," has been loved and celebrated by readers everywhere. It won the National Book Critics Circle Award, the "Los Angeles Times" Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Rarely has a book so swiftly found its place on the literary landscape.
And now we have "'Tis," the story of Frank's American journey from impoverished immigrant to brilliant teacher and raconteur. Frank lands in New York at age nineteen and gets a job at the Biltmore Hotel, where he immediately encounters the vivid hierarchies of this "classless country," and then is drafted into the army and is sent to Germany to train dogs and type reports. It is Frank's incomparable voice that renders these experiences spellbinding.
When Frank returns to America in 1953, he works on the docks, always resisting what everyone tells him. He knows that he should be getting an education, and though he left school at fourteen, he talks his way into New York University. There, he falls in love with the quintessential Yankee and tries to live his dream. But it is not until he starts to teach that Frank finds his place in the world.

Frank McCourt (1930–2009) was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Irish immigrant parents, grew up in Limerick, Ireland, and returned to America in 1949. For thirty years he taught in New York City high schools. His first book, Angela’s Ashes, won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Los Angeles Times Book Award. He is also the author of the memoirs 'Tis and Teacher Man. In 2006, he won the prestigious Ellis Island Family Heritage Award for Exemplary Service in the Field of the Arts and the United Federation of Teachers John Dewey Award for Excellence in Education.