As a full-time memoir ghostwriter, I’ve read hundreds of memoirs. What makes Angela’s Ashes stand out is the emotional complexity—the tension between what a memoir writer felt in the past and how he—you—understands those feelings in the present.

As a memoir ghostwriter, J.R. Moehringer did his job—to craft a story of universal human experience wrapped inside a culture-specific expression. A great memoir creates settings and characters and conflicts so true to humankind that we genuinely care about the outcome.