Malachy McCourt was already famous as an actor, saloon-keeper, and late-night TV personality when his brother Frank's Angela's Ashes was published. That book introduced the incorrigible, indomitable Malachy to a worldwide audience; his memoir, A Monk Swimming, picks up his rollicking story.

Born in Brooklyn and raised in the lanes of Limerick, Malachy returns to New York at age 20. After stints in the Air Force and as a longshoreman, he parlays his gifts of gab and conviviality into an ownership position at Malachy's--the first singles' bar--where glamorous women from the Barbizon Hotel could stop in for a tipple and flirt. He hilariously recounts many madcap adventures, from selling Bibles on Fire Island and smuggling gold in Zurich to acting with the Irish Players and a semi-regular gig on Jack Paar's Tonight Show. In A MONK SWIMMING, Malachy's genius for storytelling and language will have you laughing till you weep.