Publication Date: April 16, 2025
Many novels set in the world of rock music depict stardom, debauchery and deceit. King Cal instead focuses on the creative process, the devotion required to choose an uncertain life in music, the inspiration for songwriting and the challenge of making the rent while making art.
In the course of one ordinary day, Atlanta fast food worker Calvin loses his girlfriend, his band and his best friend. Suddenly, everything he had planned to spend the rest of his life doing seems to have flown away.
Told with insight, sensitivity and deep respect for what it takes to make a life in music, King Cal is a coming-of-age novel about a determined young man who starts with little, aims to earn a little more and has to decide whether success, or even clinging to his dream, is worth the sacrifice.
Peter McDade knows about music, having spent 15 years traveling as a drummer. This alone cannot possibly be the secret to writing a good novel about a young man trying to find his way into the music industry. Yet McDade has combined his experience and good storytelling to make a hit coming-of-age novel with King Cal.
I like my movies a bit quirky, with underdog characters I fall in love with and plots that make me reflect or come at me unexpectedly. This makes me a fan of Miramax. If I could influence Hollywood, this one would rush to the big screen!
The author nearly opens the book with a scene that hooks me: “…but Calvin’s life is not a movie”. Calvin is trying to somehow rewrite his life without continuing with the lackluster days he spent with his parents and then later stepparents that did not add any new hope for him. His luck takes a turn when he meets Grady in the eighth grade, and they forge a love for music and a plan that will guide them to the band they hope to start one day.
The novel has chapter headings of the time of day as Calvin’s life is turned upside down in 24 hours. Much of the story takes place at Burger Buddies. Calvin‘s approach to his job and the way he splits his train of thought between happenings in the life of a fast food worker and the creative processing of a songwriter is both fascinating and hysterical.
Music, especially songwriting, is his number one priority. Yet, he needs to fit in time for his best friend’s dream, his sister Alice, who now goes by Alex, a landlord who seems to do little more than get high and, much to his surprise, the girl of his dreams. How can all of this fit in “The Plan”?
Peter McDade uses his own rock experience to create Calvin, a Burger Buddies’ star employee on the outside with a hidden talent for songwriting.
King Cal gives us a 24-hour setting to get into the mind and heart of Calvin. Expect to be absorbed in a way similar to watching a favorite cult classic film. 
Peter McDade spent fifteen years traveling the highways of America as the drummer in the rock bands Uncle Green and 3 lb. Thrill, releasing a half-dozen albums on various major and independent labels. Raised in New Jersey, he now lives with his family in Atlanta, where he teaches at Clark Atlanta University. King Cal is his third novel.
