Stuart McGrath, the mayor’s erstwhile assistant, tells
the tale of his meteoric rise (don’t meteors fall?) from volunteer campaign
worker to chief of staff for third term Mayor Nathan Higgins. With a new degree
in political science, Stuart is fascinated by electoral politics and Scranton,
and when he gets the opportunity to fuse them by appointment as the high titled
but low paid chief of staff to the mayor, his real education begins.
In the style of
political satirists Christopher Buckley and P.J. O’Rourke, Gary Ryman looks at
small city America as personified by Scranton, Pennsylvania. Hard scrabble fading coal town, Joe Biden
blue collar mecca, home of Dunder Mifflin paper, Scranton is all of these and
none of these. City government is
however, a combination soap opera and situation comedy and Stuart is up for
best supporting actor. With inspiration from television and newspapers—sources
of questionable accuracy at best—Ryman puts his own spin on how the city runs
(or doesn’t). The Education of Stuart McGrath
