Pain and damage don't end the world, or despair, or fuckin' beatin's. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you've got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man... but give some back. (Al Swearengen, DEADWOOD)
Male
44 years old
WINSTON SALEM, North Carolina
United States
U2, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Drive-by Truckers, Moby, Radiohead, REM, David Gray, Tom Petty, Peter Gabriel, Elvis Costello, Johnny Cash, Dave Brubeck, Dire Straits, Three Dog Night, Doobie Brothers, The Police, Matthew Sweet, Neil Young, Otis Redding, Alice in Chains, Tracy Chapman, The Guess Who, The Who, Cheap Trick, The Beach Boys, Guns N' Roses, Janis Joplin, Simon and Garfunkle, John Hiatt, Green Day, Pink Floyd, Cracker, Stone Temple Pilots, Neil Young, Fleetwood Mac, Hank Williams, The Cure, AC/DC, Foo Fighters, John Mellencamp, Smashing Pumpkins, Wallflowers, Patsy Cline, pre-1975 Elton John, Led Zeppelin, Nick Lowe (his country phase), Coldplay, The Walkmen, Franz Ferdinand, Marah, Linkin Park, Paul Simon, Marvin Gaye, old Motown, Bernard Herrmann's soundtracks...more to come. A contender for favorite song: "Gimme Shelter" by the Rolling Stones. Another contender: "One" by U2.
Movies
United 93 (2006)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
Lost in Translation (2003)
Insomnia (2002)
The Good Girl (2002)
Donnie Darko (2001)
Almost Famous (2001)
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
One Day in September (2000)
Memento (2000)
American Beauty (1999)
The Limey (1999)
Three Kings (1999)
Election (1999)
Office Space (1999)
Arlington Road (1999)
The Big Lebowski (1998)
Out of Sight (1998)
Jackie Brown (1997)
Zero Effect (1997)
Affliction (1997)
Trees Lounge (1996)
Bound (1996)
Fargo (1996)
Dead Man Walking (1996)
To Die For (1995)
Captives (1994)
Heat (1994)
Dazed and Confused (1993)
Remains of the Day (1993)
King of the Hill (1993)
Red Rock West (1993)
The Player (1992)
Pacific Heights (1990)
Good Fellas (1990)
The Rapture (1990)
Say Anything (1989)
Clean and Sober (1988)
Tin Men (1987)
Swimming to Cambodia (1987)
Something Wild (1986)
River’s Edge (1986)
After Hours (1985)
Stop Making Sense (1984)
Blood Simple (1983)
Risky Business (1983)
The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981)
Body Heat (1981)
Used Cars (1980)
The Shining (1980)
Chinatown (1974)
The Conversation (1974)
Paper Moon (1973)
Klute (1971)
Midnight Cowboy (1969)
Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
The Graduate (1967)
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
Persona (1966)
Lolita (1962)
Cape Fear (1961)
Vertigo (1958)
Rear Window (1954)
The Third Man (1950)
It’s a Wonderful Life (1947)
Nightmare Alley (1947)
Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
Also: Chaplin (especially the old Mutual Comedies; the Gold Rush; The Kid; Monsieur Verdoux; among others); Laurel and Hardy (the Hal Roach years); Our Gang (again the Hal Roach years); The Three Stooges (w/ Curly and Shemp but NOT Joe or Curly-Joe). As a kid, I loved Abbott and Costello movies. Sadly, they haven't held up as well as I'd hoped, even though there are moments of genius in them. Give me an old Warner Brothers cartoon any day of the week. And, of course, any of the old Universal horror movies of the '30s and '40s: Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, and The Mummy, in particular.
Television
Deadwood (amazing!), The Wire, Mad Men, Lost, 24, Seinfeld, Hogan's Heroes, I Love Lucy, The Honeymooners, Twin Peaks, Family Guy, and The Simpsons. A brilliant performance: Chris Farley in SNL's "Herlihy Boy" skit.
Okay, I'll admit it: I also wallow occasionally in bad TV, like Dog the Bounty Hunter and American Idol.
Books
Too many to list, but...Revolutionary Road (Richard Yates), The World According to Garp (J. Irving), One Hundred Years of Solitude (Garcia Marquez), Light in August (Faulkner), Among the Missing (Dan Chaon), Fallng Angels (Barbara Gowdy), Cat's Eye (Atwood), Staggerford (Jon Hassler), Grand Opening (Jon Hassler), The Stories of John Cheever, The Coast of Chicago (Stuart Dybek), In Cold Blood (Capote), The Things They Carried (Tim O'Brien), The Collected Stories of Flannery O'Connor, A Confederacy of Dunces (John Kennedy Toole), Winter in the Blood (James Welch), The Shining (Stephen King), The Risk Pool (Richard Russo), House of Sand and Fog (Dubus III), Pop. 1280 (Jim Thompson), Black Boy (Richard Wright), Jesus' Son (Denis Johnson), Edwin Mullhouse (Stephen Millhauser), anything by Charles Portis but especially Masters of Atlantis, The Sweet Hereafter by Russell Banks, In the Garden of North American Martyrs (Tobias Wolff), Josie and Jack (Kelly Braffet), Where I'm Calling From (Raymond Carver), Little Children (Tom Perrotta)
Little Beauties (Kim Addonizio), Speed Queen (Stewart O'Nan), Continental Drift (Russell Banks), White Noise (Don Delillo), Wilderness Tips (Margaret Atwood), We're all in this Together (Owen King), Chekhov, Kafka, The Art of Fiction (John Gardner), On Becoming a Novelist (John Gardner), early Paul Bowles stories, Pastoralia (George Saunders), Mickelsson's Ghosts (John Gardner), Kafka (Did I day Kafka already?), Pauline Kael (any of her books), Nobody's Perfect (Anthony Lane), The Collected Letters of Thomas Wolfe, The Habit of Being (Flannery O'Connor), Aspects of the Novel (E.M. Forster), The Lonely Voice (Frank O'Connor), Mysteries and Manners (Flannery O'Connor), Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews, Working Days: The Journals of The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck), Adventures of Huck Finn (Twain), Moby Dick (Melville), The Rhetoric of Fiction (Wayne C. Booth), American Slang, 2nd Edition (Robert L. Chapman), Into the Wild (Jon Krakauer), Into Thin Air (Jon Krakauer), In Cold Blood (Truman Capote)...more to come.
Heroes
My first word was "Batman," so... Heroes? Man, I don't know.
I grew up on the southwest side of Chicago (Burbank, if you must know) and am now a writer. I've written four books of fiction and edited six anthologies. I write a lot about the Chicago area. (The Book of Ralph, my first novel, is set in Burbank in the late '70s, for instance.) I spent a year recently in L.A. with a screenwriting fellowship from the Chesterfield Writer's Film Project, sponsored by Paramount Pictures. I've taught at universities all over the country (Illinois; Iowa; Nebraska; Wisconsin; Colorado; Florida; D.C.). I was recently the Visiting Writer at Columbia College Chicago (spring 2007). My full-time job is associate professor of English at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
THE NEW ANTHOLOGY!
ON SALE NOW!
WHEN I WAS A LOSER: TRUE STORIES OF (BARELY) SURVIVING HIGH SCHOOL
from ELLE Magazine (March 2007)
"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."
from PASTE MAGAZINE
"High school wasn’t the 'best time' 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."
from TIME OUT CHICAGO
"The editor, novelist John McNally, is an old hand when it comes to editing literary anthologies...and he clearly knows what he’s doing. There’s awkward sex, bullying, partying and crushes, all in spades, but it’s the quality of the writing that makes so many of these essays unusual. Altogether, it makes for the best topical anthology we’ve read in a long time."
TROUBLEMAKERS (U. of Iowa Press, 2000)
"Troublemakers confirms McNally's status as a major and exciting new talent." --The Capital Times (Madison, WI)
"John McNally has that rare gift of achieving both humor and poignancy, and his ability to evoke the personal past in all its delicious detail makes one think of an American Roddy Doyle." --T.C. Boyle, author of Talk Talk
"Troublemakers consists of 11 incredibly rendered stories of boys and men who have been marginalized. While the stories are connected by McNally's searing, darkly comic style of storytelling, each one develops a fresh set of characters and demonstrates a new dimension to the author's fierce prose and controlled craft." --San Francisco Bay Guardian
THE BOOK OF RALPH (Free Press/Simon and Schuster, 2004)
"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." --Mitch Albom, author of The Five People You Meet in Heaven
"The Book of Ralph should earn John McNally the wider audience that his talent and wit deserve."
--Chicago Tribune
"John McNally's vivid, skewed characters, his vibrant prose and hilarious situations make The Book of Ralph, with its undercurrent of menace, a serious joy." --Richard Russo, Pulitzer-Prize winning author of Empire Falls
AMERICA'S REPORT CARD (Free Press/Simon and Schuster, 2006)
"It has been a long time since I've been so excited, provoked and haunted by a novel as I have been by America's Report Card. I want to run out and buy multiple copies--for my kids' teachers, my co-workers...even my stupid senator. I flat-out can't wait to talk about this book, which is a brilliant, laugh-out-loud satire of contemporary American life with a tender, angry heart and enormous compassion for the little guy. You've got to read it. John McNally is emerging as one of the best American writers of the new century." --Dan Chaon, author of You Remind Me of Me
"At last - a post 9/11 novel with imagination, guts and integrity, and one that actually shows real people being sucked into the American nightmare. John McNally is a marvelous writer and should be applauded for producing this timely, stylish and often hilarious book." --Irvine Welsh, author of Trainspotting
"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 Post-Intelligencer
And, at the risk of completely cluttering up this page, here are my other four anthologies...
Check out my website for more details, writing advice, and book tour information.
THANX FOR BEING A FRIEND! I WISH YOU A FABULOUS, DARK AND TWISTED HOLIDAY SEASON!!! I DO HOPE THAT SANTA LEAVES OUT THE COAL THIS YEAR AND 2010 GREETS YOU WELL! Again... Thanks for your support and HAPPY NEW YEAR 2010! -Criss Karver (Author of THE LUNACY MACHINE)
THANX FOR BEING A FRIEND OF CRISS KARVER AND THE LUNACY MACHINE. ALSO, WANTED TO WISH YOU A FABULOUS DARK AND TWISTED WEEK!!! HOPE THE HOLIDAYS ARE GOOD TO YOU! IF YOU'RE UP TO SOME NEW TWISTED TALES IN RHYME, STOP BY AND CHECK OUT MY BLOG: http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.ListAll&friendID=124955625
-TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK AND LOOK FOR THE LUNACY MACHINE TO HIT THE BOOK SHELVES SOON!
Just sayin' Hi. Hope you're having a great fall so far and a wonderful year to come. Writing up a storm on Book III, Honor Redeemed, which is scheduled for release late this fall. Hope you too are well. May this turning of the Great Wheel of Life bring you many blessings. Be well, DH Winner of the 2008 Silver Medal for Fiction by the Military Writers Society of America (MWSA) Honor Defended on sale now. Book II of the Citizen Warrior series Dedicated to the 'Quiet Professionals The Books of D. H. Brown "War Brothers are not chosen, for In conflict mated, we were created Sentenced as each other's keeper Till death do us part." ~The Major
Hi John, it's been a long time since we last communicated and I just wanted to stop by and say hello and tell you how wonderful I think it is that you've accomplished all that you have. Much happiness to you and I only hope that your success continues to thrive!!
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Hey friend b a friend and go to www.wgcr.us today from eleven a.m. til 12:30 p.m. to listen to LV and co host Miz Chiefa on the midday show! You can minimize the box and go back to myspacing it if you miss the show tune into it mon-sat same time as above! Much Love, Peace & Blessings
Hey John!! It has been awhile. How have you been? I am sorry that I was not able to see you when you were in town last. I hope it went well. Take care and talk to you soon.
Online Now!
