“America’s Report Card: A Novel” scores an A+

Having earlier met (and cracked wise) with my new bud, Ralph, from The Book of Ralph and likewise lived it up with assorted Troublemakers, I was ready—really ready—to check out John McNally’s grades via America’s Report Card.

Happily, the author (if not the country) earns a straight-up A+ for taking readers on an enormously enjoyable romp through post-modern love/sex, post-graduate ambition/ennui, post-prison recidivism (tooth for tooth), and post-9/11 paranoia. (But are you actually paranoid if they’re really out to get you?)

The characters—a way-underemployed film studies major named Charlie, and Jainey, a smart but luckless teenager—meet cute (well, after grading her state-mandated achievement test, he stalks her), and they mutually devolve/evolve before semi-triumphantly trading lifestyles, destinies, and even hairstyles.

A professor at Wake Forest University, McNally keeps a light touch—nothwithstanding the shady characters (like Jainey’s scary brother and her mostly incarcerated dad), the shaky Chicagoland neighborhoods, and some unnerving bad karma.

In McNally’s America, someone looking over your shoulder—at work, at home, at school, in public restrooms—is both a comforting promise and a vague threat.

Resistance is futile.