When I Was a Loser: True Stories of (Barely) Surviving High School [Paperback]

John McNally (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 6, 2007

For Anyone Who's Ever Been a Teenager

Who's teenage years weren't terrible? Remember the scary older kids? The sadistic gym teacher? The smelly kid who sat next to you in science class? Your first fumbling kiss? That time you threw up in the cafeteria? Your first attempt at putting on a condom? The period that arrived unexpectedly? That awful fight with your parents? The first time you got drunk? That note you wrote that you shouldn't have written? The day you forgot to zip your fly? That monster zit? When, you wondered, would it all end?

In When I Was a Loser, John McNally, author of the novel America's Report Card, assembles twenty-five original essays--often hilarious, sometimes tenderhearted, always evocative--about defining moments of high school loserdom. Brad Land, Julianna Baggott, Owen King, Johanna Edwards, and many more fresh, talented writers explore their own angst, humiliation, heartache, and other staples of teen life.

These essays perfectly capture what it was like to be in high school: to experience so many things for the first time, to assert independence while desperately trying to fit in, to feel misunderstood and unable to articulate the wild swings between heartbreak, anger, and euphoria. One writer recalls how his grandmother helped him with his home perm in preparation for the Senior Class picture; another recounts her discovery, sometime after hitting puberty, of the power she held over boys and men, while at the same time she felt herself at their mercy; a third remembers the casual cruelties visited on him by the cooler kids, and the cruelties he, in turn, inflicted on kids below him on the social ladder.

Utterly candid and compulsively readable, these essays conjure up and untangle those raw and formative years. The writers cringe and laugh at the teenagers they were, but at the same time, they honor their adolescence and the way it shaped their lives. Because, in truth, beneath the layers of adult respectability, we all still carry a little bit of our teenage selves around with us.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

John McNally is the author of two novels, The Book of Ralph and America's Report Card, and a short story collection, Troublemakers. His next book, Ghosts of Chicago, a collection of short stories, will be published this fall. A native of Chicago, he lives with his wife, Amy, in North Carolina, where he is associate professor of English at Wake Forest University. The first word he ever spoke was "Batman," who has remained, in his darker incarnations, his favorite superhero. John's first creative work, a play written in the fourth grade, featured an overweight superhero who gets stuck inside a phone booth while changing into his costume. He is happy to return to the genre, albeit thirty-four years later.

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Free Press; Original edition (March 6, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416532447
• ISBN-13: 978-1416532446
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,276,185 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

John McNally is the author of three novels, After the Workshop, America's Report Card, and The Book of Ralph; and two story collections, Ghosts of Chicago and Troublemakers. He has edited six anthologies, including Who Can Save Us Now: Brand-New Superheroes and Their Amazing (Short) Stories (co-edited with Owen King). John's short stories, essays, and reviews have appeared in over ninety magazines, newspapers, and anthologies, including Virginia Quarterly Review, Washington Post, The Sun, Open City, Chicago Tribune, New Sudden Fiction (Norton), and Long Story Short (University of North Carolina Press). His work has appeared in the textbooks Winding Roads: Exercises in Writing Creative Nonfiction and Behind the Short Story: From First Draft to Final Draft, both published by Longman. John has been the recipient of numerous awards for his writing, including a Chesterfield Writer's Film Project for screenwriting (sponsored by Paramount Pictures), the Jenny McKean Moore fellowship for fiction (sponsored by George Washington University), and the Carl Djerassi fellowship from the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing at the University of Wisconsin. His short stories have been cited three times as an outstanding story of the year in the Best American Short Stories series (1991, 2007, and 2008). John has taught creative writing at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, Western State College of Colorado, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of South Florida at Tampa, George Washington University, and Columbia College Chicago. He has given over a hundred readings all across the country, from New York City to Honolulu, from Bellingham, Washington, to Sanibel Island, Florida. A native of Chicago's southwest side, he is at present an associate professor of English at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where he lives with his wife, Amy, and their many animals.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars See. Something may come of all that bad hair, those stupid kisses, March 6, 2008

By 

Billy Lombardo (Forest Park, IL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: When I Was a Loser: True Stories of (Barely) Surviving High School (Paperback)

John McNally's only guideline when he asked twenty-five contemporary writers to submit essays for this book was to write a personal essay about being a loser in high school. What he received from these writers was a selection of essays that range from sweet and heartbreaking to hilarious. It should not surprise you to learn that there are stories in this collection about proms, first kisses, bad hair, stupid crushes, and dozens of other reasons for you to celebrate that you survived high school.

In the essay, "White Anklets and Blue Anything," Elizabeth Crane writes about her experience at Barbizon's School of Modeling (BSM). "I had my reasons for wanting to go," Crane writes. "...one being that I perceived myself to be quite beautiful in spite of the fact that this was recognized by exactly no one else at the time besides my mom. I genuinely believed that the boys at our school were just idiots not to see it. Photographic evidence in the way of my 2 x 3 feet graduation photo from BSM, dressed in a printed polyester leisure suit, handmade by my grandmother to my specifications, proves I may have been the idiot."

If you've read McNally's America's Report Card or The Book of Ralph, you will recognize the touch of his humor and heart in many of these essays.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Get in touch with your inner loser!, July 19, 2007

By 

Kevin M. Rumble (Shelton Laurel, NC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: When I Was a Loser: True Stories of (Barely) Surviving High School (Paperback)

This is a wonderful collection of stories about the angst of our high school days, when each of us secretly believed that everyone else had mastered the art of being cool, but we alone failed to fit in. All the stories are terrific, but I especially enjoyed John McNally's funny and sensitive "Hair Today..." and Quinn Dalton's haunting "Do Not Wear Green on Wednesdays". I had not previously read anything by many of the authors whose work appears in this volume, so it will serve as a roadmap in discovering the rest of their work.

No matter what memories you carry of your teen years, you will find something in this book you can relate to, and enjoy.

4.0 out of 5 stars a good collection, April 14, 2011

By 

John Bowes (Oxford, MA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: When I Was a Loser: True Stories of (Barely) Surviving High School (Paperback)

It's nice to remember that we were all the same, thinking we were different, even tho we weren't. Insecurity was the rule. Some good stories, a couple of great ones. Good to pass the time.