The Book of Ralph

This special twentieth-anniversary edition features an introduction by John McNally and 150 pages of bonus stories about Hank and Ralph.

Chicago, 1978. Hank Boyd, a solid B+ student, a good kid, wants eighth grade to be his special year. But when Ralph, an oddball troublemaker who's been held back twice, gets the idea that he and Hank are pals, Hank's year devolves into an odyssey as frightening as it is hilarious. John McNally deftly portrays the astonishing, sometimes terrifying world of adolescence in 1970s America. This is the story of two boys managing to create their own small moments of transcendence.

"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 good-bye at the end of the book."

-Mitch Albom, author of The Five People You Meet in Heaven and Tuesdays with Morrie

"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." -Sarah Dessen, The News & Observer (Raleigh, NC)

"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." -Stephen J. Lyons, Chicago Sun-Times

"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." -Porter Shreve, Chicago Tribune

"McNally's talent for characterization and his lush sense of place make for funny and oddly compelling reading." -Booklist

"McNally knows how to balance the hair-raising with the hysterical better than any other young writer working today?"
-Virginia Quarterly Review

"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, author of Empire Falls

"Wildly goofy yet touching, The Book of Ralph inhabits the same territory of growing up charted by Stuart Dybek and Tobias Wolff, and with as much warmth and terror as those masters. John McNally is sharp and smart and flat-out funny. The only time I stopped laughing was to marvel at his talent. And then he'd get me again." -Stewart O'Nan, author of The Night Country and Wish You Were Here

"Populated with unlikely heroes, cast in the gray light of Chicago's South Side, McNally's book is wonderful, hilarious, and perfectly specific. By the end, I felt like I'd known Hank and Ralph my whole life." -Haven Kimmel, author of A Girl Called Zippy

"John McNally brilliantly evokes childhood with all its love and loneliness, fear and sorrows, laughter and joy. His bold leaps through narrative time reveal our inability to fully escape the pressures of our past." -Chris Offutt, author of The Killing Hills