In 1952, travelling steerage, Malachy McCourt left a childhood of poverty in Limerick, Ireland, heading for the promise of New York. This is the story of what he brought with him, and what he thought he'd left behind. Armed with savage humour and a gift for story telling, fueled by rage and the desire never to go hunfry again, he ran from the memories of a drunken, vanished father and the humiliations of Angela, his mother.