SNIPPET: Peter FINN of "The Philadelphia Inquirer" described McCOURT's autobiographical book, "Angela's Ashes" (1996) as "a spellbinding memoir of childhood that swerves flawlessly between aching sadness and desperate humor - A work of lasting beauty." McCourt was born in NY but raised in Ireand and attended Leamy's school in Limerick circa 1938. Frank returned back to the States at age 19. For many years he was an English teacher at Stuyvesant High School in New York City, later to write and live in CT. Here is a small excerpt: "On a Saturday morning Mam finishes her tea and says, You're going to dance. Dance? Why? You're seven years old, you made your First Communion, and now 'tis time for the dancing. I'm taking you down to Catherine Street to Mrs. O'Connor's Irish dancing classes. You'll go there every Saturday morning and that'll keep you off the streets. That'll keep you from wandering around Limerick with hooligans. She tells me to wash my face not forgetting ears and neck, comb my hair, blow my nose, take the look off my face, what look? never mind, just take it off, put on my stockings and my First Communion shoes which, she says, are destroyed because I can't pass a canister or a rock without kicking it. She's worn out standing in the queue at the St. Vincent de Paul Society begging for boots for me and Malachy so that we can wear out the toes with the kicking. Your father says it's never too early to learn the songs and dances of your ancestors. What's ancestors? Never mind, she says, you're going to dance. I wonder how I can die for Ireland if I have to sing and dance for Ireland, too. I wonder why they never say, You can eat sweets and stay home from school and go swimming for Ireland. Mam says, Don't get smart or I'll warm your ear. Cyril Benson dances. He has medals hanging from his shoulders to his kneecaps. He wins contests all over Ireland and he looks lovely in his saffron kilt. He's a credit to his mother and he gets his name in the paper all the time and you can be sure he brings home the odd few pounds. You don't see him roaming the streets kicking everything in sight till the toes hang out of his boots, oh, no , he's a good boy, dancing for his poor mother. Mam wets an old towel and scrubs my face till it stings, she wraps the towel around her finger and sticks it in my ears and claims there's enough wax there to grow potatoes, she wets my hair to make it lie down, she tells me shut up and stop the whinging, that these dancing lessons will cost her sixpence every Saturday ... and God knows she can barely afford it. I try to tell her, Ah, Mam, sure you don't have to send me to dancing school when you could be smoking a nice Woodbine and having a cup of tea, but she says, Oh aren't you clever. You're going to dance if I have to give up my fags forever. If my pals see my mother dragging me through the streets to an Irish dancing class I'll be disgraced entirely. They think it's all right to dance and pretend you're Fred Astaire because you can jump all over the screen with Ginger Rogers. There is no Ginger Rogers in Irish dancing and you can't jump all over. You stand up straight and keep your arms against yourself and kick your legs up and around and never smile. My uncle Pa Keating said Irish dancers look like they have steel rods up their arses, but I can't say that to Mam, she'd kill me.... There's a gramophone in Mrs. O'Connor's playing an Irish jig or a reel and boys and girls are dancing around kicking their legs out and keeping their hands to their sides. Mrs. O'Connor is a great fat woman and when she stops the record to show the steps all the fat from her chin to her ankles jiggles and I wonder how she can teach the dancing. She comes over to my mother and says, So this is little Frankie? I think we have the makings of a dancer here. Boys and girls, do we have the makings of a dancer here? We do, Mrs. O'Connor.... The fourth Saturday morning Billy Campbell knocks at our door. Mrs. McCourt, can Frankie come out and play? Mam tells him, No, Billy. Frankie is going to his dancing lesson. He waits for me at the bottom of Barrack Hill. He wants to know why I'm dancing, that everyone knows dancing is a sissy thing and I'll wind up like Cyril Benson wearing a kilt and medals and dancing all over with girls. He says next thing I'll be sitting in the kitchen knitting socks. He says dancing will destroy me and I won't be fit to play any kind of football, soccer, rugby or Gaelic football itself because the dancing teaches you to run like a sissy and everyone will laugh. I tell him I'm finished with the dancing, that I have sixpence in my pocket for Mrs. O'Connor ... and that I'm going to the Lyric Cinema instead. Sixpence will get the two of us in with tuppence left over for two squares of Cleeves' toffee, and we have a great time looking at 'Riders of the Purple Sage.' .... Dad is sitting by the fire with Mam and they want to know what steps I learned today and what they're called. I already did 'The Siege of Ennis' and 'The Walls of Limerick,' which are real dances. Now I have to make up names and dances. Mam says she never heard of a dance called 'The Siege of Dingle' but if that's what I learned go ahead, dance it, and I dance around the kitchen with my hands down by my sides making my own music ... Dad and Mam clapping in time with my feet. Dad says, Och, that's a fine dance and you'll be a powerful Irish dancer and a credit to them who died for their country. Mam says, That wasn't much for a sixpence."