Tales of the Madman Underground
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4.6 • 19 Ratings
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
Wednesday, September 5, 1973: The first day of Karl Shoemaker's senior year in stifling Lightsburg, Ohio. For years, Karl's been part of what he calls "the Madman Underground" - a group of kids forced (for no apparent reason) to attend group therapy during school hours. Karl has decided that senior year is going to be different. He is going to get out of the Madman Underground for good. He is going to act - and be - Normal. But Normal, of course, is relative. Karl has five after-school jobs, one dead father, one seriously unhinged drunk mother . . . and a huge attitude. Welcome to a gritty, uncensored rollercoaster ride, narrated by the singular Karl Shoemaker.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
High school senior Karl Shoemaker just wants to be normal. Since fourth grade, Karl has been unable to escape the stigma of the Madman Underground, a school therapy group for screwed-up kids (he earned the nickname "Psycho" after cutting up a classmate's rabbit in seventh grade). But with a drunken, hippie mom who believes that Nixon is in cahoots with aliens and who steals Karl's hard-earned money, a horde of pet cats that leave droppings everywhere and a claustrophobic hometown that still worships his deceased father (the former mayor), Karl's quest for normalcy seems doomed. In his YA debut, Barnes masterfully turns what should be a depressing tale about teenage misfits who are regularly abused, molested or neglected into a strangely heartwarming story about a kid who refuses to suck the lemons life keeps handing him, the bonds of friendship and the lengths a son will go to protect his mother. The language is R-rated, but with Breakfast Club like realism, Barnes delivers scenes from which, like a car wreck, readers will be unable to look away. Ages 14 up.
Customer Reviews
Tales of the madman underground
The first person voice of Karl shoemaker is so funny as he struggles so courageously to live one day at a time with all the odds stacked against him. What compels me to visit him again and again is his hilarious perception of the adults around him and how clueless he is about how many of them love and respect him. Flawed as they are themselves like his peers in the Madman
Underground, they just want to help. My highest praise always goes to books with characters so dear to me that I must read and reread them just so I can spend time in their company.
Tales of a MAdman Underground
Simply awesome