After the Workshop

Twelve years after graduating from the prestigious Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Jack Sheahan, the protagonist of McNally’s witty third novel, suffers from chronic self-doubt and a decade-long case of writer’s block. He keeps an unfinished novel in a box under his telephone books and earns his living as a media escort for literati invited to read in Iowa City, greeting authors at the airport, chauffeuring them around town, and occasionally running their errands—all the while seething with envy. With two clients in town at the same time—one a new mother with possible postpartum psychosis who disappears with her baby, the other an arrogant New Yorker of Jack’s age who has garnered the awards Jack once dreamed of winning—plus a snowstorm, a former fiancée, and a mysterious visit by a famous writer who’d disappeared from public view years earlier, the action spirals into frenzy. McNally (Ghosts of Chicago ), an Iowa graduate and former media escort, clearly knows the world he admires yet takes down. His wacky literary archetypes, naked humor and sharp observations offer up an entertaining look at the writing life and the people who prop it up. (Mar.)