But some have paused to wonder whether the vibrant memoir credited with inventing the lucrative genre of “misery literature” is in fact a true and authentic account of his childhood. Or is it largely a creation of McCourt’s undoubtedly fertile imagination?
The book is the subject of a scathing attack in the latest edition of the
Dublin Review of Books. Alan Titley, emeritus professor of Irish at University College Cork, denounces McCourt as a “chancer”.
He accuses him of peddling a book that was “trashy” and “cringe-inducing”; a “sham” with a “concocted narrative”.
To say that the professor is unimpressed by the man once hailed as the “Irish Dickens” would be a dramatic understatement.