A Long Stone's Throw [Hardcover]

Alphie McCourt (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 4, 2008

The McCourt family gained fame through the books of brothers Frank and Malachy and in the two popular documentaries that profiled them. In A Long Stone's Throw, the youngest McCourt, Alphie, adds his gifted voice to this literary chorus with a vivid, emotional memoir that starts in his native Limerick. Alone and dispirited after his brothers leave for America, Alphie flees Ireland as soon as he's able. He spends the remainder of his adolescence in New York, aimless and half drunk. A return to Ireland to study law is a dismal failure. Back in America, things aren t much better until he reconnects with, and eventually marries, the beautiful Lynn. Still, things are rough: their daughter Allison is born with difficulties, business success alternates with business failures, he continues to drink. Finally, after an epiphany on Route 80, McCourt learns to navigate, clear-eyed, the happy chaos of New York City, and of life itself.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Alphie is the youngest of the four McCourt brothers and the third-after Frank and Malachy-to pen a memoir about his life in Ireland and the U.S. Being a decade younger than Frank, we see the Limerick of the early 1950s is still a hard life for the McCourts, but with the brothers leaving for America-and being drafted into the U.S. Army-there is now money coming into the household. Still it is the same bleak landscape that Frank wrote about in Angela's Ashes, full of class-based bias and still under the thumb Holy Mother Church. This book is a nomadic adventure worthy of Ulysses. We see Alphie coming to America, going to Canada, finally reentering the U.S. and going into the Army as, of all things, a No. 10 can food inspector. After jobs in bars and journeys to Dublin and California, Archie finally settles in New York, finds a wife and has a child. McCourt always finds irony in life and his tales of the bar and restaurant business and its clientele are laugh-out-loud funny. Sensitive, lyrical, funny, stubborn, impetuous, McCourt writes with a steady hand, a joyful heart, and an Irishman's sense of life's absurdities.
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Review

"This book is a nomadic adventure worthy of Ulysses. Sensitive, lyrical, funny, stubborn, impetuous, McCourt writes with a steady hand, a joyful heart, and an Irishman’s sense of life’s absurdities.”
- Publishers Weekly

"The talent of writing seems to be genetic. A Long Stone's Throw visits another memoir of the McCourt family, the baby of the family, Alphie. Growing up in a rough family during a rough time, Alphie had an eventful life like his brothers. A whirlwind of a life brought him across the Atlantic and seemed to not have him have much rest, as he found himself in Canada, California, before finally finding stability in New York City. Another perspective of the McCourt family, A Long Stone's Throw is well worth the read."
- Midwest Book Review

“This book stands utterly and uniquely on its own. Beautifully written, with gentle wit, penetrating honesty and forgiving insight, it is a moving and poetic account of one man's long day's journey into light. I was entranced from first page to last. You will be too.”
– Peter Quinn, author of Banished Children of Eve, Hour of the Cat and Looking for Jimmy

"Fans of Angela's Ashes will be fascinated by this alternate account of the McCourt family history. Alphie McCourt is a gentle, charming, philosophical narrator."
– Brooke Allen, literary critic and author of The Moral Minority

“When the history of Ireland is written––the story of the ordinary and the extraordinary combined––the readers will thank the heavens for what the McCourt family have brought us. A Long Stone's Throw is humble, humorous and honest. Alphie McCourt moves fluidly through time and geography, to bring us a brand new story, one that is necessary and real, one filled with tenderness and redemption.
– Colum McCann, author of Zoli and Dancer

"Life can be terrifying—or it can be amusing. Alphie McCourt has captured the rhythm of life as he has lived it, first in Limerick City, then in New York City. Nothing escapes his attention, be it the little mouse scraping among the poor McCourts for food in Ireland, the inanity of being a #10 can food inspector in the U.S. Army, the workings of New York’s saloon societies, or the search for the ultimate mortal sin—sex. A Long Stone’s Throw is marvelously and sensitively written. It will make you laugh, cry and thank God you were lucky enough to find this book. Alphie McCourt is a uniquely talented memoirist."
– Dermot McEvoy, author of Our Lady of Greenwich Village and Terrible Angel

"In this time of anxiety about immigration, here is evidence of how essential to our sanity and our sense of the absurd, is a frequent transfusion of Ireland. This book is like an evening with a wonderful storyteller who describes scenes and people and events so vividly, and with such sly wit, that he transports you along with him on his journey. Here is a great immigrant tale, told with such charming modesty that it goes down like a smooth draught of ale.”
– Samuel Gibbon, Emmy-winning producer of Sesame Street and The Electric Company

“The world, courtesy of Alphie McCourt’s fertile prism of seems once again full of the promise of tomorrow. A memoir, yes, but so wickedly sly and witty––no self-pity here––in the talented hands of Mr. McCourt, the very word memoir seems inadequate.”
– John Mulholland, writer/director of The True Gen

"My brother Alphie is a writer, and always has been, but it's public now. He has written a memoir where his unique voice, great style and literary talents shine through. It's a funny, sometimes sad saga, but you will be delighted you read it."
- Malachy McCourt, author of Singing My Him Song and A Monk Swimming

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Sterling & Ross Publishers; First edition (November 4, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0981453554
• ISBN-13: 978-0981453552
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #477,653 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Memoir Written By A McCourt Not Named Frank, November 13, 2008

By 

John Kwok (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Long Stone's Throw (Hardcover)

If you had thought you had read the last word in the McCourt family saga after reading Frank McCourt's "Teacher Man" and Malachy McCourt's "Singing My Him Song", then brace yourselves for yet another delightful read in Alphie McCourt's "A Long Stone's Throw". The youngest of the four surviving brothers McCourt, Alphie McCourt demonstrates that he has, like his older brothers, a keen ear for dialogue and a fine sense of comedic timing too. Like his oldest brother Frank, Alphie shows that he is a fine prose stylist too, writing a similar lyrical prose which readers of Frank's books, especially "Angela's Ashes" and "Teacher Man" have found so moving and so rewarding. And yet his is a personal saga that may not resonate as strongly with readers as Frank's - or to a lesser extent, Malachy's - have. Why? I suspect there shall be those who will regard Alphie's personal odyssey as an employee, and then later an owner, of several of Manhattan's Irish-American bars and a trend-setting Mexican restaurant, to be less the stuff of legend than the colorful lives led by older brothers Frank and Malachy. Yet those who subscribe to such a view will be ignoring a fascinating life well lived by the youngest McCourt; one that takes readers on an epic journey not only through the mud-infested lanes of impoverished Limerick, Ireland, but such far-flung North American cities like Toronto and San Francisco too.

Without question, the most moving passages in "A Long Stone's Throw" recount Alphie's own impoverished Limerick childhood. A childhood that sounds far more hopeful, and substantially less oppressive, than either Frank's or Malachy's. The only one of the four surviving McCourt brothers to attend, and then graduate from, high school, Alphie yields page after page of truly memorable prose recalling his excellent education at Catholic schools. Equally memorable are his recollections of himself growing up, alone except for his mother, and a few close family members and friends, as he becomes the sole McCourt brother still residing in Limerick, his older brothers having gone to America to seek their fortunes. Some of Alphie's most emotionally rich prose is devoted to his mother, Angela Sheehan McCourt, painfully describing her own loneliness and great sense of loss, as she tends to a tiny household consisting of herself and her youngest son, Alphie.

There are other, better, memoirs written by such great Irish-American writers like, respectively, Pete Hamill ("A Drinking Life") and Dennis Smith ("A Song for Mary") (Incidentally both are long-time friends and acquaintances of Frank and Malachy McCourt). They are better simply because theirs are truly memorable examples of Irish-American literature. Yet none of these have conveyed as well as the memoirs written by the brothers McCourt, the experiences of adult Irish emigrants living in the strange land known as the United States of America. Alphie's infectious tone of optimism present throughout "A Stone's Throw" betrays his life-long love for his adopted country, even when the proverbial chips are down, which, in Alphie's case, seem more often than not. For this reason alone, "A Stone's Throw" deserves a wide readership not only amongst the great clan of devout McCourt fans, but also among those interested in reading about an Irish emigrant's experiences in America. Without a doubt, Alphie McCourt deserves ample praise for rendering a life most ordinary into one replete in literary richness.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not Just Another McCourt, January 3, 2009

By 

Easy Reader, - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Long Stone's Throw (Hardcover)

You may think that if you've read the memoirs of the two older McCourt brothers, Frank and Malachy, you've heard all that the McCourt family has to say. You'd be wrong. Alphie has a unique story to tell and he tells it in his own distinct voice. His experiences as a young immigrant are widely varied and he recounts them with a wry self-deprecation that charms. Some of the episodes are horrific, some sweet, some bitter, all are moving. There are moments of laugh-out-loud comedy, most often endearingly at the author's expense. His observations of the various strata of American life he encounters in his innocence are witty and insightful, and he delivers his occasional philosophical ruminations with a fine literary style. This book is different from his brothers', but every bit as worthy.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, but Not As Good as Frank's Work, November 1, 2009

By 

Loyd E. Eskildson "Pragmatist" (Phoenix, AZ.) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Long Stone's Throw (Hardcover)

Alphie McCourt is the youngest of the four surviving McCourt brothers, the most famous being Frank ("Angela's Ashes" - Pulitzer Prize winner). Much of Alphie's early life recollections parallel those of his oldest brother, Frank, though they are not as dramatic as Frank's accounting. Perhaps life had simply much improved by the time Alphie began growing up.

"A Long Stone's Throw" begins in 1960s NYC where Alphie is seeking to establish permanent immigration status and land steady work. Burdened by too much drink (like his father and Frank) and not enough enthusiasm, Alphie drifts, and eventually is drafted during the Vietnam years. Alfphie becomes a food inspector for the Army, then enrolls in Columbia after his discharge, only to drop out shortly thereafter.

Alphie's story then returns to Ireland, circa 1940 when he was born, and then his experiences at school and church, and then his brothers and surrogate sister leaving for the U.S. Eventually Alphie also leaves for the U.S. His first six years are spent going from waiter to part-time bartender, with Army service sandwiched in as well. Then two years in Dublin pursuing a law degree - drops out after two years. Returning to NYC, it's back to bartending, then at age 32 Alphie moves to the San Francisco area - again mostly tending bar at age 32. Two years later its back to NYC and bartending, and this time he marries. Then its opening a bar/restaurant - eventually folds largely due to partnership problems. Now he's 50, unemployed, and in danger of being evicted from his apartment. Fortunately Alphie then lands a job managing a large nearby apartment co-op.

Overall, the book was a bit of a downer, with Frank endlessly drifting and never making much of his obvious talents.