| The world’s largest St. Patrick’s Day Parade takes place not in Ireland but in New York City, a tradition that pre-dates the founding of the United States. For generations of Irish immigrants, the procession has offered a sense of community and belonging, a feeling that the memoirist Frank McCourt sorely missed when he landed in New York as a teen-ager. In 1996, The New Yorker helped launch McCourt’s writing career by publishing an excerpt from “Angela’s Ashes,” the account of his Limerick childhood that would become a best-seller and win a Pulitzer. Three years later, the magazine featured the next chapter of McCourt’s story: “New in Town,” about the first days after his migration to America. Searching for something familiar, the young McCourt finds himself in an Irish pub in Manhattan—until the bartender gruffly orders him to visit the public library instead. Like all of McCourt’s writing, the piece manages to be simultaneously painful, poignant, and funny, with the author vividly re-creating the fine details and broad impressions of his early years. In this instance, the young McCourt notes new idioms (“calling in sick,” “getting laid”), along with the country’s welcoming book lenders and its residents’ remarkable teeth. McCourt feels demoralized after an ill-fated attempt to eat lemon-meringue pie in a bathroom—in context, his reasons sort of make sense—but the reader can see his promise, as does his stern new boss. “He tells me keep my eye on the ball, don’t forget to take a shower every day,” McCourt recalls. “He says anything is possible in America.” | 
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