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CHICAGO TRIBUNE, March 11, 2007
About WHEN I WAS A LOSER...
Chicago Tribune Editor's Choice
"Reunion season is around the corner and instead of standing in one, stay home, read this book and feel like you're in the great company of wonderful writers like Elizabeth Crane, Maud Newton, and John McNally, editor of the book. This collection of more than 20 essays captures those gawky, self-conscious, angst-filled years in all their glory."
PASTE MAGAZINE, MARCH 2007
About WHEN I WAS A LOSER...
"[T]he 25 'true stories' submitted by up-and-coming fiction writers (Owen King, Lisa Gabriele, Sean Doolittle and others) lift the fog of nostalgia that has enshrouded the high-school experience in pop culture and actually shine some new light on those trying times... High school wasn't the 'best times' of these writers' lives -- but it surely has made for the best kind of reading material: In this collection, high school never sucks the same way twice." -Joey Rubin
ELLE MAGAZINE, MARCH 2007
About WHEN I WAS A LOSER...
"When I Was a Loser, edited by novelist John McNally (America’s Report Card), gathers some two dozen winning recollections by Julianna Baggott, Will Clarke, Brad Land and others who look back with humor, embarrassment, and even grudging affection on how they survived their high school years packed with bad hairdos, boring family vacations, backstabbing best friends, and other painful rites and rituals of adolescence."
Punk Planet, Nov. and Dec. 2006
About AMERICA'S REPORT CARD:
"[It] is his mastery of the marginalized, the odd, the simultaneously sad and funny characters who populate his world, that makes his fiction so darn magisterial."
Writers on the Rise, September 2006
"John McNally's newly published novel, AMERICA'S REPORT CARD, is creating a buzz for its satirical examination of standardized testing and politics. Told from two viewpoints – that of a troubled teen who answers the test's essay question in a flippant, yet honest way – and a test reader who reads her response and seeks her out to help her. Insightful and funny, America's Report Card is the perfect back-to-school read."
Writers on the Rise Newsletter.
Whatzup, 8/17/06
About AMERICA'S REPORT CARD:
"McNally’s vision of the 2004-and-beyond American landscape sets up a little internal culture war of its own; the novel is sad and funny, hopeful and cynical, jaded and naive. Just like America."
WhatzUp Review
Las Vegas City Life, August 17, 2006
About AMERICA'S REPORT CARD:
"Plenty of novels have used 9/11 as an image or a plot point and, by and large, they've failed on a grand scale (none worse that Jay McInerney's The Good Life), but it's to McNally's credit that he never allows for sentimentality to creep into his satire...[It] is the blunt force of McNally's clear dismay with the state of world affairs that allows for the gallows humor he specializes in to shine through."
Read the entire review: Las Vegas City Life
Motif Magazine
About AMERICA'S REPORT CARD:
"...McNally's snapshot style captures the excess energy, insouciance and polar mood swings of adolescence with marvelous accuracy...Even more precisely than Jainey's teen angst, McNally gets the ennui, rootlessness, complacency and subconscious nagging doubt that plague so many grad students."
San Francisco Chronicle, August 7, 2005
About AMERICA'S REPORT CARD:
"...a funny, familiar and fantastical tale of post-Sept. 11 America....McNally provides satisfying resolutions in a way rarely found in this type of hybrid, modern meta-fiction. He offers an entertaining political novel steeped in thought, one both funny and true."
S.F. Chronicle Review of AMERICA'S REPORT CARD
Seattle Post-Intelligencer, August 4, 2004
About AMERICA'S REPORT CARD:
"Say this for John McNally: He ventures where other writers might fear to tread. AMERICA'S REPORT CARD is a gutsy, highly entertaining and thought-provoking satire for these troubled times."
Seattle P.I.
Washington Post, July 23, 2006
"AMERICA'S REPORT CARD is a gangly comic novel that starts by making fun of conservative education reform ("No Child's Behind Left Untouched") and ends by accusing President Bush of genocide. McNally is a clown wearing brass knuckles, and with this sometimes clever, sometimes goofy story, he may finally incite on the fiction bestseller list the kind of brawl that's been raging away between liberals and conservatives on the nonfiction side...The adventure that follows is wildly energetic, often chaotic and never resists a diversion as it careens toward a conclusion that's oddly terrifying and sweet. What America's Report Card really hopes to assess are the psychotic symptoms that ordinary people have begun to display as a result of our government's surveillance and brutality:
a) disillusionment
b) paranoia
c) rage
d) all of the above.
When you're finished, put your #2 pencil down and enjoy a government-sanctioned moment of silence."
Read the full review: Washington Post "Book World"
Chicago Reader, Critic's Choice
About AMERICA'S REPORT CARD:
"As in McNally's previous novel, The Book of Ralph, there's a lot of humor here [in AMERICA'S REPORT CARD]--but it's shot through with a decidedly sinister undercurrent. Remember when your grade-school teacher threatened, 'This can go down on your permanent record'? In McNally's world, it probably did."
Chicago Reader
TimeOut Chicago, July 20, 2006
About AMERICA'S REPORT CARD:
"It’s rare to find such a thought-provoking novel that is also so effortlessly entertaining. [AMERICA'S REPORT CARD] is a book you can take to the beach, and use as a catalyst for beach-blanket political discussion."
TimeOut Chicago
Chicago Tribune, July 16, 2006
About AMERICA'S REPORT CARD:
"McNally scores high for (mostly) not confusing earnestness with drama; for an inventive, engaging story; for accurately reading distrust and despair as the mood of (some of) the American electorate; for trenchant observation; and for writing that endows its disaffected characters with dimension and some genuine pathos...McNally weaves together dozens of plot elements with glee and assurance, taking full advantage of most of the opportunities to score one for his side."
Read the full review: Chicago Tribune
Booklist
About AMERICA'S REPORT CARD:
"McNally parlays the humorous, off-kilter vision in The Book of Ralph…into an even more high-voltage, culturally discerning, agilely comedic novel of Midwest angst and national paranoia… McNally’s flair for the absurd, poker-faced humor, and dead-on critique of post-9/11 fearmongering are matched by crisp dialogue, superb pacing, and compassionate regard for humankind."
Publishers Weekly, May 29, 2006
About AMERICA'S REPORT CARD:
"McNally takes a satiric, paranoid look at the dastardly machinations behind standardized testing...The bizarre plot and colorful characters make for an engrossing read."
Kirkus Reviews, June 2006
About AMERICA'S REPORT CARD:
"Two likable misfits are brought together by the Bush administration's dastardly use of national education tests...Totally charming whacked-out politics."
National Education Association, May 2006
AMERICA'S REPORT CARD chosen as SUMMER'S HOT NEW PICK!
"To ease the transition from test time, why not start off with John McNally’s AMERICA'S REPORT CARD, a novel offering a look at what happens when Scan-Tron sheets, war, and elections collide...Government and education conspiracy enthusiasts will find some great riffs, and those looking for a steamy beach read where everybody knows NCLB’s name will not be disappointed."
FYI: NCLB = No Child Left Behind.
Bookslut, October 2005
What does Bookslut say about "The Book of Ralph"? "It is filled to the brim with nostalgia for the seventies (CB radios, the Gong show, Styx), pre-teen hilarity, and the family melodrama that is infused with the universal experience."
Dallas Morning News, July 9, 2005
"Wouldn't it be fun if at least one book of the BIBLE was named for an ordinary guy? It probably was, come to think of it. In this case, BOOK OF RALPH is a parable of sorts about a teenager. He's an odd duck who teaches his friend a thing or two about America in the 1970s."
Chicagoist, May 2005
The Chicagoist -- a Chicago-area blog -- weighs in on THE BOOK OF RALPH: Straight Outta Ford City
Daily Southtown, May 29, 2005
Read about John's signing at Duke's Italian Beef Drive-in: 'RALPH' AUTHOR HAS HOMECOMING AT DUKE'S DRIVE-IN
Time Out (Chicago), May 26-June 2, 2005
Thomas Haley calls THE BOOK OF RALPH "a smart and gritty coming-of-age story mostly set in 1978 and told through the eyes of Hank's earnest, innocent, but far from naive perspective."
Chicago Reader, May 27, 2005
In an article about John McNally's book-signing at Dukes Italian Beef Drive-In on Chicago's southwest-side, Bill Humphrey, manager of Dukes, says, "Growing up around here, it's impossible not to like [THE BOOK OF RALPH]...you almost feel like you know the kids in the book."
Chicago Reader, May 20, 2005
CRITIC'S CHOICE: JOHN MCNALLY
Jerome Ludwig writes: "The south side gets no respect. The White Sox have the best record in the major leagues and can't fill the Cell; the Cubs are sub-.500 and still pack Wrigley Field. Maybe it's the same with novels: Adam Langer's recent CROSSING CALIFORNIA, set in Rogers Park, got loads of press, while John McNally's 2004 chronicle of a southwest-side childhood, THE BOOK OF RALPH, didn't get nearly as much -- a shame, because it's a terrific book...McNally depicts the embarrassments and cruelties of teenagers with empathy, and he nails adolescent boys' rising interest in girls...And Ralph is one of my all-time favorite comic characters; a guy just like him went to my school, probably yours too."
Chicago Sun-Times, May 1, 2005
NEW PAPERBACKS. THE BOOK OF RALPH. A much-praised comic novel of growing up on the 8th grade streets of Chicago in 1978, by one of the city's most talented native sons.
Chicago Tribune, December 19, 2004
"The Book of Ralph" made Chicago Tribune's "More Favorite Books From This Year" list:
They write, "Set mostly in 1978 Chicago, this sweet novel is a funny ode to juvenile delinquency and pop culture."
Third Coast (Western Michigan University's Literary Magazine)
Read Orman Day's interview about working-class literature with John McNally, Dan Chaon, Susan Straight, and the late Larry Brown.
Third Coast
The Pilot (N.C.), December 2004
Author Ruth Moose writes, "In 'The Book of Ralph' the reader gets this wild and crazy, skewed version of growing up. It’s the 1970s with Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn and they’re adventuring in the environs of the city. This is a city where the ghosts of Al Capone and gangsters hover in a benign way over Hank and Ralph, our heroes who make us laugh and sigh. They are absolutely irresistible!"
Christopher Isherwood Foundation, Decenber 2004
John had just been awarded the Thomas Williams Fellowship in Fiction from the Christopher Isherwood Foundation.
The other Isherwood Foundation winners for this year are Kate Braverman, Daniel Coshnear, Alyson Hagy, Bret Anthony Johnston, and Nance Van Winkel.
Mitch Albom, author of The Five People You Meet In Heaven
"This book is charming, sensitive, and at times flat out hysterical. I knew kids like Ralph--and they scared me--but none of them had his heart, his humor, or ultimately his entertaining story. I hated to say goodbye at the end of the book."
WhatzUp: Leisure Time Weekly for Northeast Indiana
Evan Gillespie writes, "On the surface, McNally's book is top-drawer entertainment; it is funny and human and endearing. I would argue, however, that the book should enjoy a more significant position in the history of American fiction. A clear-eyed vision of childhood in the waning years of the twentieth century, the story of Ralph and Hank can be seen as an intermediate step, a sobering answer to the question of how we've managed to travel from Tom Sawyer to Columbine."
WhatzUp: Leisure Time Weekly for Northeast Indiana
Pulp (Pittsburgh), June 3-10, 2004
"Remember the CB radio craze? Cheap Trick? Pink Floyd? Organ stores at the mall? Head shops? Well, if you don't, you're not my age. Meet Hank, all-around nice kid. Meet Ralph, the eighth-grade troublemaker who befriends him. In the opening pages of John McNally's The Book of Ralph, it's 1978 and Ralph has found the 1974 Sears catalogue in which Patty O'Dell modeled Sears panties. Ten-four. Over-and-out. You will laugh so hard you'll forget you don't have air conditioning."
Pulp: Pittsburgh's Source for News, Arts, and Entertainment
January Magazine, May 2004
"McNally captures the true essence of an eighth grade boy...'The Book of Ralph' is a highly readable and thoroughly enjoyable book."
January Magazine
News & Observer (Raleigh, NC), May 2, 2004
From Sarah Dessen's review: "McNally's writing is so compelling, not to mention funny, that you're often surprised by sudden, more tender moments...His book has a depth that sneaks up on you...It is McNally's ability to keep us interested in these characters beyond what they were to what they are that is the book's greatest strength."
News and Observer (Raleigh, NC)
The Lantern (Ohio State University), April 29, 2004
"There is not a single hazy recollection in this book, as McNally skillfully voices Hank's innocent, wandering and naïve thoughts with touching clarity: the type of depth not often seen in similar coming-of-age tales."
The Lantern (Ohio State University)
NBC's Today Show, April 21, 2004
Mitch "Tuesdays With Morrie" Albom, while selecting the new Today Show book club selection, cited "The Book of Ralph" as "very funny" and an "excellent book," and lamented that it was heartbreaking having to select just one book. "The Book of Ralph" came in a close second for Albom. (He selected Andrew Sean Greer's "The Confessions of Max Tivoli.")
Watch the clip! (Warning: You'll have to watch a commercial first.)
NBC's "Today Show"
Washington Post, April 18, 2004
"Out of this Huck-and-Tom setup...comes a comic series of connected episodes -- 'The Book of Ralph' is subtitled 'a fiction,' although its pacing and depth qualify it as a novel -- that careen around three decades. Sometimes hazy, occasionally wistful, often picaresque chapters are delivered with a satirist's perfect understated pitch and announce John McNally -- also the author of 'Troublemakers,' a collection of stories -- as a gifted meta-memoirist."
After appearing in the Washington Post, this review was syndicated in several papers, including the Detroit News. See link below:
"Washington Post" review of "The Book of Ralph"
Los Angeles Times, April 18, 2004
"Wading into 'The Book of Ralph,' John McNally's good-natured comic novel, is like entering a Sears catalog from the fall of 1978...It hits all the stops on its tour of '70s cultural detritus: CB radios, the music of Styx, 'The Gong Show.'"
Booklist
"McNally's talent for characterization and his lush sense of place make for funny and oddly compelling reading."
Virginia Quarterly Review, Spring 2004
"The Book of Ralph" is chosen as VQR's "Editor's Choice": "McNally knows how to balance the hair-raising with the hysterical better than any other young writer working today."
The Journal News, March 28, 2004
Ashley Warlick says, "'The Book of Ralph' by John McNally is very funny. Ralph, the nutcase that holds these pieces together, is fabulously crazy."
Chicago Tribune, March 28, 2004
"Turn to nearly any page in 'The Book of Ralph' and you will find a funny, moving or outrageous set piece, usually with the hapless narrator, Hank, participating in some juvenile rite.... 'The Book of Ralph' itself is much like Hank's father's project, a collection of strange and wonderful objects set out on the lawn, a carnival of vivid memories. ...'The Book of Ralph' should earn John McNally the wider audience that his talent and wit deserve. Chicago-area readers, in particular, will have good reason to look forward to future work by this native son."
Newcity (Chicago), March 18, 2004
"McNally," according to Larry Lamovec, "is kind of like deep-dish pizza. He's one of the best things Chicago has to offer -- at least when it comes to local authors."
Newcity (Chicago), "McNally's Map: The Chicago-Bred Author Talks about 'Book of Ralph'"
Red Streak (Chicago Sun-Times), March 18, 2004
Mike Danahey writes, “…I think you should read [McNally’s] humorous book; a touch smart-ass, essentially meat-and-potatoes Chicago kind of story.”
Chicago Public Radio, March 18, 2004
Listen to an interview with John on Chicago Public Radio, WBEZ's Eight Forty-Eight show.
WBEZ "Eight Forty-Eight"
Chicago Tribune, March 14, 2004
In a feature article for the Chicago Tribune, John McNally takes a Trib reporter to his old haunts.
Chicago Tribune, "On the Trailer Park Trail: Author John McNally Remembers the Fires, Break-ins and Grade-school Hustles that Inspired his First Novel"
Chicago Sun-Times, Febuary 29, 2004
In a very positive review in the Chicago Sun-Times, Stephen J. Lyons writes, "There are times in 'The Book of Ralph,' especially when McNally describes Hank's grade school periods of restless angst and unrequited schoolyard crushes, when one is reminded of satirist David Sedaris."
Chicago Sun-Times, "Running with the Toughs: A Chicagoan's Fine First Novel about Hanging out With All the Wrong People"
Publishers Weekly, January 2004
PW writes, "[T]his enjoyable first novel [The Book of Ralph] is a nostalgic trip back to late 1970s suburban Chicago and the foibles of eighth-grader Hank and his twice left-back delinquent pal, Ralph," and concludes, "This lively novel will appeal to fans of Rich Cohen's Lake Effect or even Jean Shepherd's wistful fiction."
Kirkus Reviews, December 2003
Kirkus writes of "The Book of Ralph," "The always reliable fascination of the good kid with the possibilities of the hood life knit together anecdotal memoirs set in the seedy southwest corner of Chicago in the late '70s and early '80s....Harmless fun for the lads, courtesy of second-timer McNally."
Wall Street Journal, December 18, 2003
In an article about the power and influence of Barnes and Noble's head fiction book buyer Sessalee Hensley, she is asked to name forthcoming books that she's excited about, and one of the three titles she cites is John's "The Book of Ralph."
Wall Street Journal, "This Buyer of Fiction has Real Clout"
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