A laudatory tribute in The New Yorker, one of his many employers, to the late artist, humorist and cartoonist who died two weeks ago brought my attention to this autobiography. An eccentric, insecure, misfit in a large dysfunctional family in Simcoe, Ontario, and later in Toronto and Windsor, McCall spent his entire 1940s unhappy childhood doodling satirical and comical drawings as an escape. His mother was an alcoholic and his father an aloof cold absentee most of the time. His childhood, except for the dysfunctional family, reminded me of my 9 year old grandson, who spends hours sketching funny scenes on any available surface. I may be biased, but I think he has great talent and potential.
After unhappy lonely schooling in Toronto and Windsor, and failed attempts to establish a car magazine in Canada, and fanatically enthralled with cars and racing, McCall found menial jobs in advertising for various automotive companies. First this was in 1960’s thriving and then derelict Detroit and later in New York and Frankfurt, Germany, (working for Mercedes-Benz). Never satisfied and never contented anywhere he settled, with the help of friends, he eventually found meaningful work in the 1970’s as an illustrator, cartoonist, satirist, and writer for various publications, first with National Lampoon and most notably, The New Yorker. His stint of writing for SNL in 1976 was very brief. I loved his covers (he produced a total of 77) for The New Yorker and some but not all of the more than 100 satirical “Shouts and Murmurs” pieces he wrote for them. Some of his cartoons are also very entertaining.
I loved the dry humour and satire in the book, and grant that McCall had considerable writing talent with unique humour and satire. One man’s friendship is said to be “as sincere as the mortician’s handshake.” There is good insight into the complex world of ad agencies to complement the information provided by Terry O’Reilly”s Under the Influence” show on CBC radio but some of the distinctions of differing jobs in that field were lost on me.
Some good quotes:
“I quickly realized that I wasn’t cut out to be an adult; anxieties I had been grooming since I first learned to worry rattled me.”
“My airbrush learning curve was a straight horizontal line.”
He described the 78 Ford Fairmont station-wagon’s bench front seat “as ergonomic as an electric chair.”
Now the faults. There is a negativity to much of the description, such as the personalities of many colleagues and the lack of nightlife in his rural Massachusetts’ home. This extends to his false modesty and self-deprecation, attributing all of his accomplishments to others, which does not ring completely true and is annoying. It could be read as the exact opposite- a bloviating “Look what I’ve accomplished in spite of my awful background.”
McCall‘s constant distain for Canadian culture irritated me. He describes us as “breeding what I saw as a wallflower mentality, and a bland tolerance for mediocracy.” He never criticizes America’s polarized politics, gun culture, and war mongering. In fact, he never mentions U.S. politics at all.
I have expanded my star rating of books from a scale of 0-5, to one of 0-10 to allow for more nuance. I give this one ⭐️⭐️⭐️.
The Passionate Reader 