photo: Amy Knox Brown
It's no coincidence that Chicago's Southwest Side is prominently featured in many of John McNally's stories. The author spent his formative years in Burbank, and his portraits of life in this working-class 'burb pay tribute to the residents of this area without resorting to overt sentimentality.
McNally's work combines dry humor with unforgettable characters, tackling some of humanity's darker truths. The result is vividly rendered, poignant literature that raises the bar for all contemporary writers. Discover a little about the man behind the pen then check out his latest release, America's Report Card, at your local bookstore.
Tell me a little bit about your latest work?
One of the jobs I had about 10 years ago was scoring standardized tests; it was just a really Kafkaesque job. After scoring literally thousands of answers to a single question, you would lose sight of what the question was at a certain point. And part of that was because the people in charge were constantly changing what was an acceptable answer. You realize pretty quickly that accuracy has nothing to do with it.
That's when I realized that once you have a multi-million dollar corporation involved in something like evaluating test scores, their interests are in keeping that multi-million dollar contract; it really doesn't have much to do with the integrity of the tests. I had always hated standardized tests, but I left there realizing that not only is it not a good gauge for how smart somebody is, it's a really fucked-up system.
I tried [writing about] it, and it didn't work until I was in L.A. in 2004. I was watching all the shit that was on TV and getting more and more frustrated about what was happening in Iraq. I had set [the novel] in the mid-'90s and I thought, why don't I just move it to 2004 and let all the shit filter in and see what happens. So the book is in some ways this weird culmination of everything I could kind think of in 2004 that was eating away at me.
Tell us about your creative process.
I set a page limit for the day. But usually when I'm really working on something intensely I'll start raising the page limit up a bit. I always have all kinds of math figures next to me, like how quickly I can finish the book. And I can never hit my targets. So I say October for the new book, but it will probably be like next year or something.
What do you like to do when you're not writing?
Home repair, walking my dogs, watching Deadwood repeatedly. I'm kind of obsessed with Deadwood; I'm writing an essay about it right now. Otherwise I'm pretty dull.
Got any favorite local hangouts?
Dukes is one. Italian Villa. I used to go to Durbin's in Burbank until I saw that the owner contributes heavily to the Republican Party. Last time I was in town I went to The Castle [Inn and Liquors] for the first time. I'd already written about [it] in America's Report Card and I went after the fact, and it didn't look like anything I'd written. It's all food places, really. I come here and just eat like a pig. *laughs*
Who else should we be reading?
Dan Chaon. Among the Missing is just a great collection. And not because he blurbed my book; I was a huge fan before. George Saunders. Right now I'm reading To Kill A Mockingbird. So I'm going back to things I haven't read in years. When I was working on America's Report Card I was reading The Bell Jar.
