Listening to Alphie McCourt’s audio book I have to wonder if John Steinbeck or Ernest Hemingway had any siblings and if they were asked to write books. Frank McCourt was a brilliant writer with a magnificent style that brought you into his tragic story and made you feel as if you were there with him. Malachy McCourt also pales greatly when compared to Frank. And sadly, as with Malachy’s books, I couldn’t finish Alphie’s rather dull story of his uneventful life. .
The Audiobook version is read by Alphie McCourt and he does have a quite lovely way of speaking. He is a very soft spoken fellow who breaks into sad and simple songs once in a while. I found it impossible to listen to A Long Stone’s Throw while driving, as the book was recorded at such a low level and Alphie all but whispers his tale of life in the Army and his misadventures in getting his Green Card.
It rather amazing that Alphie’s story is so bland and commonplace-after all, he was there during all the events that happened in Angela’s Ashes. But maybe he didn’t want to tell that story again, maybe he just wanted to fill in the blanks of his own part of the story. Of course, I don’t much care about Alphie’s parts of the story.
Or maybe he just hadn’t got around to the interesting bits before I gave up on A Long Stone’s Throw.
The problem is a simple one, Alphie McCourt’s story is not an extraordinary one and it’s pretty obvious that this book would have never been published if Frank and Malachy had not opened the road first. I hope that Alphie makes some money and there seem to be people out there that can read the book on it’s own without comparing it to his brothers works.
But for me, the only reason to read A Long Stone’s Throw is to fill in the gaps in Frank’s story. That is, if Frank’s story had any gaps that needed filling.
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