"McGowan raises questions about art in the real world of artists' lives . . . In wryly amusing stories that often end in a twist, he gives voice to indelible characters and their unstoppable drive to create."
--- Janet Koplos, Art in America

"It is all right to copy what you see, but it is much better to draw what you can no longer see except through your memory. This is a transformation in which imagination collaborates with memory. All you reproduce is what struck you."
--- Edgar Degas (attributed), from the front matter of South Main Stories