HE MIGHT HAVE WRITTEN a national best-seller, but as he walks down Arch Street, Shawn McBride is a lot more interested in telling the story of how he got mugged.

One morning this past August, while McBride was on his way to work at the Criminal Justice Center, a homeless man took a twenty-yard running start and sucker punched him. When he recovered from the shock, McBride looked over and saw the homeless man wearing his sunglasses. Like an angry high school principal, McBride tried to demand the glasses be given back, but the man only began doing a strange dance. After more of McBride's grousing, the man got either bored or annoyed, threw the glasses on the ground, and left.

From the way he tells it, the fact that he was assaulted is an afterthought, second only to the story’s humor and novelty. In his writing, this ability to mix misfortune with a good laugh creates an authenticity rare among contemporary novelists. In his everyday speech,  it makes you want to know more about him.

Prior to writing Green Grass Grace, which was selected by Barnes & Noble for its Discover Great New Writers series, McBride spent his time the way many aspiring writers do—failing to get started. “I probably wrote a bombastic opening sentence to 40 million would-be novels,” he says, laughing, at Tir na Nog bar. “I’d buy a marble copybook and write these beginnings, Henry Miller Tropic of Cancer things, like ‘We are all alone here and we are dead.’ I was always trying to write really big. Then I’d throw out the copybook, get another one, and write another big opening sentence. That’s all I did. It was a loop I was stuck on.”

McBride remained in this loop throughout most of his twenties. After graduating from DeSales University with a degree in English, he returned to the Holmesburg section of Philadelphia, where he grew up. He worked a variety of jobs (maintenance man, medical copy editor, mailman) and continued to throw out his marble copybooks.

It wasn’t until after a difficult divorce, followed by an ugly custody battle, that his drive to write became a priority. “Things got really bad,” he says. “I came out of that more mature. I grew up and started sitting down and taking the time.”

A large part of his motivation he attributes to his 9-year-old daughter, Chloe. “Having a daughter was huge. You see this kid who looks to you for guidance and wants to admire you. I wanted to be something for her. I told myself, “It’s time to sit down, be a man, and write a book.’ ”

So at 28 he began writing Green Grass Grace, the story of Henry Toohey, a 13-year-old boy from Northeast Philadelphia, who, on a summer weekend in 1984, sets out to patch the problems of his working-class family by reaffirming the power of love.

Convinced that friends wouldn’t provide objective criticism, McBride edited his way through hundreds of pages of internal jokes and flat dialogue. Going over one version, he re-created the book’s opening and discovered Henry’s voice. With another version, he realized certain jokes would unify the story and create a context for important scenes. After two years of work, he completed the manuscript, and it was picked up by Touchstone, a division of Simon & Schuster.

As a result of this labor, McBride refuses to believe there is anything magical about writing and frequently says, “It’s just elbow grease.”

He also remains extremely humble: “I’m still stumbling along, trying to write, and I don’t believe anybody who says otherwise. It’s the strangest thing in the world to turn on a computer and turn a blank screen into something with form and shape. I can’t believe I’ll be any more knowledgeable about it 400 books into a career.”

Now 33, happily remarried and at work on his second book, McBride recently read over his first draft. Out of the 900 pages written, he considered only 11 of them to be any good. So he threw the rest away and started over. As discouraging as it was to trash all that effort—especially when he also has a day job—McBride considered it a part of his commitment to being a good writer: “I always pop off about money and how I want to be a rich and famous author, but when I’m at my laptop, it’s gotta be good. I won’t take shortcuts.”

The new book, North Pole to Philly, is a literary tribute to Claymation Christmas specials. In an interview that appears in the back of Green Grass Grace, McBride described it as being about “unhappily married homicide detectives, their failing marriage, their explosives-loving delinquent egghead twin son and daughter,” as well as “bad art, soft rock, AWOL Christmas toys, [and] the Clauses on the rocks.”

Is he kidding? 

With a smile, he says, “I know. It's really strange. But that’s when I know an idea is good. That’s when I know I want to work on it.”

The basic plot, he explains, involves toys escaping the North Pole to inspect the family to whom they’ll be sent. Fairly straightforward. Of course, the family is from Philadelphia, an elf bounty hunter comes looking for the toys, and, yes, Mrs. Claus is cheating on Santa.

He says he got the idea from watching television with his daughter. “When you're a parent, you get hammered with these cartoon shows. I was watching Pooh and Nightmare Before Christmas and Toy Story. So all of a sudden I wanted to do something with these kids characters but make it for adults.”

Now that Green Grass Grace has been out more than eighteen months and his focus is shifting toward the new book, McBride feels a little awkward continuing to do readings. “I feel like Bachman Turner Overdrive,” he jokes. But when he was asked to participate in a “Live at the Writers House” performance for the 215 Festival, he says, “It was impossible for me to say no. It’s just too cool.”