A loss

We've lost Frank McCourt, the author of Angela's Ashes.

News of the deaths of two writers have made me stop in my tracks over the years. The first was E B White in 1985. How I loved E B White's writings! He was best known for his children's book, Stuart Little, Charlotte's Web, and The Trumpet of the Swan, but it was his essay collections which I loved best: One Man's Meat, Second Tree from the Corner, The Points of my Compass. I taught a Maine Writers unit for many years, and E B White's One Man's Meat was at the heart of that course. This essay collection is mainly about his life on his salt water farm in Brooklin, Maine. The essays are touching and thought-provoking and humorous. What a writer. He chose words carefully and used them well.

One summer when we were camping at Acadia National Park (Bar Harbor), Ken and I drove over to Brooklin so I could see E B White's farm. I was a bundle of nerves as we drove to Brooklin, excited at the possibility of seeing EB White with my own eyes, and scared to death that if I did see him, I might have to speak to him. I wasn't sure a sensible word would find its way out of my mouth.

We stopped at the local post office for directions to the farm. The post mistress told us White was out of town for a few days. I remember standing beside E B White's mailbox to take a picture and thinking "E B White has stood in this very spot!" 

I once wrote to E B White, telling him how much my students (and I) enjoyed his essays. I almost passed out the day I found a reply from him in my mailbox. It was just a short note, thanking me for my note, but it was typed and signed by E B White himself. 

Last evening I heard on the news that Frank McCourt had died. This was tough news to hear. His Angela's Ashes is  one of my favorite books of all time. I read it one summer as I was preparing to teach my Advanced Placement English course that fall. Coincidentally, my sister was reading this book, too. We had so much fun e-mailing back and forth as we reacted to various passages. I remember my sister and I read the last few chapters slowly because we hated to see the story end.

Some have told me they didn't like Angela's Ashes because they found it too depressing. While the McCourt family's life was unbelievably difficult in Limerick, Ireland, I found the story to be a wonderful account of survival and optimism. In addition, it contains a great deal of humor. When we were in Ireland a few years ago, we made a point of spending a night in Limerick because that was McCourt's childhood home.

My Vermont niece's husband had Frank McCourt as a creative writing teacher at Stuyvesant High School in New York City. Jim told me a course in creative writing was required his junior year, and he was lucky enough to get Frank McCourt as his teacher. Jim was a math/science student, as are most who attend Stuyvesant, I guess, so a course in creative writing had not been something he'd dreamed of, but once he'd sat in McCourt's class, he signed up to take another writing course from him the next year. Jim said McCourt required each of his students to submit a piece of writing for publication before they could get credit in his course. The "ticket" to getting the credit was either an acceptance or rejection slip from a publisher.

We're lucky enough to have the writings of these two exceptional authors, but still, it's hard to lose them