Back to the '90s
Isabel Wilkinson is an assistant editor at The Daily Beast.
Tom Clancy, John Grisham, Terry McMillan-the 1990s were a beach-read paradise of movie-optioned paperbacks. Here are nine page-turners just as addictive as they were a decade ago.
The Night Frank Sang 'Mother Machree'
Daniel Menaker was an editor at The New Yorker for 20 years before joining Random House, where he was editor-in-chief from 2003 to 2007. He has won two O. Henry Awards, is the author of two collections of stories and a novel, The Treatment, and is working on a book about conversation, A Good Talk.
Daniel Menaker remembers a summer night in Southampton, with a sky worthy of Limerick County, when Frank McCourt began singing Irish ballads.
A Gift From Frank McCourt
John Patrick Shanley is an award-winning American playwright. He won the Academy Award for his script for the 1987 film, Moonstruck. In 1990, Shanley directed his script of Joe Versus the Volcano and in 2005, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Doubt. He directed the movie version last year.
Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright John Patrick Shanley recalls meeting Frank McCourt when he was a teenager, and seeing him for the last time. Plus, read McCourt's article about Doubt, Shanley's play.
Remembering Frank McCourt
The Daily Beast is dedicated to news and commentary, culture, and entertainment. We carefully curate the web’s most essential stories and bring you original must-reads from our talented contributors.
The death of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Angela's Ashes author has elicited an outpouring of emotions. Read tributes from John Patrick Shanley, Lee Siegel, and a former McCourt student.
Did Frank McCourt Invent James Frey?
Lee Siegel has written about culture and politics and is the author of three books: Falling Upwards: Essays in Defense of the Imagination; Not Remotely Controlled: Notes on Television; and, most recently, Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob. In 2002, he received a National Magazine Award for reviews and criticism.
Angela's Ashes was a masterpiece, but Frank McCourt's success launched a wave of half-baked, half-faked memoirs from the likes of James Frey.
My Teacher Who Brought Magic to Room 205
Susan Jane Gilman's third book, Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven, has just been published by Grand Central Publishing.
Frank McCourt's creative-writing class at Stuyvesant High School in 1981 featured "open mike" Fridays, poetry from recipes, and lots of Samuel Johnson. Susan Jane Gilman remembers the "generous renegade" who inspired her to become a writer.
Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
Jacob Bernstein is a senior reporter at The Daily Beast. Previously, he was a features writer at WWD and W Magazine. He has also written for New York magazine, Paper, and The Huffington Post.
Peter Beinart, senior political writer for The Daily Beast, is a professor of journalism and political science at City University of New York and a senior fellow at the New America Foundation.
Gerald Posner is The Daily Beast's Chief Investigative Reporter. He's the award-winning author of 10 investigative nonfiction bestsellers, ranging from political assassinations, to Nazi war criminals, to 9/11, to terrorism. His latest book, Miami Babylon: Crime, Wealth and Power—A Dispatch from the Beach, was published in October. He lives in Miami Beach with his wife, the author Trisha Posner.
Martin Jacques is the cofounder of the UK think tank Demos, writes a regular column for The Guardian, and is a visiting research fellow at the London School of Economics Asia Research Centre. His new book, When China Rules the World, is available now.
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