McNally, John (2006). America’s Report Card: A Novel. New York: Simon & Schuster—Free Press.

Pages: 266     Price: $24.00     ISBN: 978-0-7432-5626-1

While weaving together a funny and sometimes frightening picture of post-9/11 America, John McNally serves up an interesting and lively farce in America’s Report Card. Set in an Iowa college town and a Chicago suburb, the story begins with a broad attack on our current obsession with the testing and retesting of our children in primary and secondary schools, and anyone who has ever taken, administered or been assessed by such a test will find this book sad and a little scary. Testing to make sure no one is left behind may come dressed in the best of intentions, but in McNally's hands there is a putrid corruption in the process that no slick propaganda can wash away. Here the reader will find a crazy, often wacky, satire that reaches far into the contemporary American psyche. Some might be put off by the heavy hand that McNally sometimes uses to clobber his targets, but a careful reading of the book will lead most to think again about the issues he raises.

The protagonist here is a likeable, but vulnerable and failed academic named Charlie Wolf who takes a temporary job with the National Testing Center. Planning to stay only for a few months after graduating from film school, Wolf grades written essays from a test called "America’s Report Card" – described as "the government’s most important assessment of primary and secondary education" – upon which federal aid to education is based. Paid barely over the minimum wage, and with no benefits or job security, the graders at the Center are themselves drawn from the weird stragglers one often sees lingering on the margins of large universities, perhaps having failed some all-important test of their own. The grading is mind-numbing work and demands only that they reach an invisible and difficult level of high-speed consistency without regard to accuracy of the responses. Wolf declares that the work is "most surreal."

While Wolf is grading the anonymous and often angry essays, the story moves to a small suburb of Chicago where the reader is treated to delightful descriptions of Jainey O'Sullivan, a formerly very promising student now lost in near despair, not unlike that suffered by others at her age. O'Sullivan avoids school for several days, hoping to miss yet another battery of standardized tests, only to discover that she has missed the mark. Stuck with an essay assignment that asked her to imagine having been cheated out of a school election for class president – a not very subtle reminder of Bush v. Gore – she refuses to take the bait and instead sends a different kind of message. In a personal communication to the unseen grader of the essays, she writes a plea that begins, "I don’t know who reads these things and I can’t imagine what kind of sad life you must have but let me tell you a bit about myself…." In that single sentence she fails the essay assignment, but manages to reach out to another human being – the one thing that such exams can not allow, if only because such responses would undermine the all-important objective of essay consistency.

Of course, O'Sullivan’s essay ends up in the pile waiting to be graded by Wolf who is very much in the midst of a sad life and, after reading her plea, quickly leaves for Chicago to serve as her protector. The story gets stranger by the page, and a detailed description here would spoil the effect. But there is a discovery that reveals not only the results of all the national tests, but the government's forecast of future personality and proclivities of American citizens that is based on the tests, as well as a description of television celebrity Larry King described here as a "corpse that had been exhumed from a long-forgotten cemetery." And, of course, there is a sexy, former girlfriend who is stalked by Wolf (stalked by a wolf), a psychologically disturbed older brother living in the attic and listening to heavy metal while reading the Bible, a father who has been in prison for years for attacking a school gym teacher with an aluminum bat, and a scarecrow hidden in a closet that looks a little like Osama bin Laden and, at times, a lot like George Bush.

Eventually all the characters and subplots collide in a way that is both unrealistic and very entertaining, and McNally brings the story to a satisfying conclusion. This is an impressive feat in a novel that attempts to express the ennui that many feel in the United States following September 11, 2001, and the author does this with an absurd humor, tightly-drawn characters, superb pacing, and a clear compassion for those living through these times. Read this highly entertaining and thought-provoking satire. Even if you are angry when reaching the last page, your effort will be rewarded.

Reviewed by Bart Dredge, Austin College, Sherman, TX