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A review by rosseroo
After the Workshop by John McNally
4.0
Years ago, I stumbled across McNally's debut story collection, Troublemakers, and really enjoyed it. His followup novel, The Book of Ralph, was even better, and marked him as a writer who'll always be on my radar. Here, he revisits the territory of his last novel, America's Report Card. In that humorous satire, a somewhat hapless young man finishes his MFA at Iowa and then takes a crappy office job in order to make ends meet, only to become embroiled in a strange series of events. This story also features an Iowa MFA in a dead-end job, although here, Jack Sheahan is twelve years removed from that prestigious graduate program.
After initial success with a short story in The New Yorker and Best American Short Stories, Jack's writing career foundered on the shoals of an unfinished novel, which sits in a box under a pile of old phone books. Instead, he makes his living being paid by publishing companies to escort writers visiting Iowa City on their book tours. Now, I'm always rather suspicious of novels about writers and writing (and films about films), as they often come across as acts of desperation by authors stuck for ideas. But here, the story is contained in a concentrated burst, as Jack struggles to juggle two demanding clients over the course of a snowy weekend, along with repeated encounters with his ex and a mysterious reclusive novelist who emerges from hiding.
It's a kind of madcap romp with a heart of gold, poking fun at all manner of literary stereotypes, from the bossy type-A publicist, to the man's man blue-collar writer with a secret trust fund background. At the same time, it addresses the universal theme of whether or not we ever live up to our potential, and what that even means. The action is very well measured, and the comedy comes in at just the right moments throughout, in a way that felt very much like a well-structured film. In an odd way, the tone of it struck me as similar to one of Martin Scorcese's lesser-known masterpieces, After Hours. Hopefully this isn't damning with faint praise, but it's the kind of book I could easily see being made into a fun little indie film.
After initial success with a short story in The New Yorker and Best American Short Stories, Jack's writing career foundered on the shoals of an unfinished novel, which sits in a box under a pile of old phone books. Instead, he makes his living being paid by publishing companies to escort writers visiting Iowa City on their book tours. Now, I'm always rather suspicious of novels about writers and writing (and films about films), as they often come across as acts of desperation by authors stuck for ideas. But here, the story is contained in a concentrated burst, as Jack struggles to juggle two demanding clients over the course of a snowy weekend, along with repeated encounters with his ex and a mysterious reclusive novelist who emerges from hiding.
It's a kind of madcap romp with a heart of gold, poking fun at all manner of literary stereotypes, from the bossy type-A publicist, to the man's man blue-collar writer with a secret trust fund background. At the same time, it addresses the universal theme of whether or not we ever live up to our potential, and what that even means. The action is very well measured, and the comedy comes in at just the right moments throughout, in a way that felt very much like a well-structured film. In an odd way, the tone of it struck me as similar to one of Martin Scorcese's lesser-known masterpieces, After Hours. Hopefully this isn't damning with faint praise, but it's the kind of book I could easily see being made into a fun little indie film.