The memoir Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt chronicles the extreme poverty and hardship faced by his family while growing up in Limerick, Ireland. McCourt's parents Angela and Malachy struggled with alcoholism and lacked stable employment, leaving the family in constant poverty. They lived in filthy slums with rampant disease and malnutrition. McCourt depicts his childhood as a daily battle for survival against the ravages of poverty, hunger, and illness that plagued his community and took the lives of his siblings. Despite these immense struggles, McCourt was ultimately able to overcome this troubled upbringing through his literary success in writing Angela's Ashes.