For the last 25 years, writer and storyteller John Roach has held court on the back page of Madison Magazine. With musings on everything from politics and religion to family and cabin life to sports and his many obsessions—music, technology, books, weather, and hometown Madison—Roach has entertained and occasionally enraged readers with often witty and always astute observations on life as he sees it. John published another collection, Way Out Here in the Middle, in 2003. In this second edition of his greatest hits, Roach shares a collection of some of his favorite and most popular columns, which reveal as much about his edgy irreverence as they do of his soulful sentiment.

REVIEWS

John Roach is a man of few words, but those words have captured a quarter-century of Madison zeitgeist, for all its exquisite absurdity. He says a lot with a little, and he does so consistently, month after month, year after year. Most will never know what a feat that truly is, but we appreciate it all the same.

– Maggie Ginsberg, freelance writer and novelist

John Roach is funny, insightful, and full of life—and those qualities shine through every story he writes about Madison or the larger human condition.

– David Maraniss, journalist, author, and associate editor of The Washington Post

John Roach gives us something we don’t have enough of: Context. Also, when context demands, humor. And once in a while he comes out with a “I don’t give a damn WHAT you think” column that probably could have been nipped a little earlier in its melting-like-a-snow-angel life but then we wouldn’t have given a damn, either. I’m pretty sure he does that intentionally.

– George Hesselberg, Madison journalist