Sez I to Myself

A treasure chest of never-before-collected essays from Frank McCourt, Pulitzer Prize–winning memoirist, and his boisterous brother Malachy, publishing on the 30th anniversary of Angela’s Ashes, with a foreword by Colum McCann

In 1996, a retired New York City high school English teacher published a memoir that took the publishing world by storm. Angela’s Ashes, the story of Frank McCourt’s childhood in Ireland, was a bold account of poverty and family tragedy, suffused with humor and compassion. It went on to sell over ten million copies and won the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award.

Frank McCourt was suddenly an internationally celebrated memoirist, a writer who had invigorated the genre. But most readers didn’t know that Angela’s Ashes wasn’t Frank’s first published writing.

For years, he and his actor brother Malachy contributed a column to a neighborhood newspaper called The West Side Spirit. Malachy, himself a bestselling writer, also contributed to Our Town, Irish America, and The Southampton Review. And Frank went on to write for prominent publications including The New Yorker, The New York Times, Esquire, Life, and Rolling Stone. 

Sez I to Myself collects the best of those essays and works of journalism. Here the brothers McCourt tackle parades and pubs, classrooms and churches, the immigrant experience, loss, 9/11, the writing life, and more. This is a charming, tender, and insightful collection, a welcome new book from two masterful and much-loved writers. 

Frank McCourt (1930–2009) and Malachy McCourt (1931–2024) were born in Brooklyn, New York, to Irish immigrant parents, grew up in Limerick, Ireland, and returned to America as young adults. For 30 years, Frank 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 was also the author of the memoirs ’Tis and Teacher Man. In the 1950s, Malachy opened New York City’s original singles bar Malachy’s. He went on to a long career in film, television, radio, and on the stage, and as a bestselling author of many books, including A Monk Swimming and Malachy McCourt’s History of Ireland. Tom Allon is an award-winning journalist, columnist, media executive and publisher. He has written for The New York Times, the Daily News, New York Post, Huffington Post, Dan’s Papers, City & State, The West Side Spirit, Our Town, and many other publications. Allon is a graduate of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, Cornell University, and Stuyvesant High School. He has taught opinion writing at Hunter College, and journalism and American literature at Stuyvesant High School. He has four adult children, three cats, and is married to Rebecca Cohen. They live in Dumbo, Brooklyn, and East Moriches, Long Island. Jonah Allon is a writer and political communications strategist who currently serves as Deputy Communications Director for New York Governor Kathy Hochul. A born-and-raised New Yorker, he lives in Brooklyn.