Richie's Picks: TALES OF THE MADMAN UNDERGROUND by John Barnes, Viking,
June 2009, 532p., ISBN: 978-0-670-06081-8
"Living in today's complex world of the future is a little like having
bees live in your head. But there they are."
-- The Firesign Theater from "I Think We're All Bozos On This Bus"
"By noon everyone had heard that I had spent a night with Marti in a hotel
room and when the cops came by, with our mothers, I had asked for time to
get dressed. It was also all over the school that I had deliberately
provoked Grantz and lived to tell of it, and that Paul had knocked me flat. And
on top of that, that Spooky Darla had given me a thermonuclear kiss in
public.
"No getting away from it: I was now Public Madman Number One."
In small town Ohio, in the fall of 1973, Karl Shoemaker is tired of the
labels that he believes have been placed on him and his friends at school.
He is determined to begin his senior year of high school (and, hopefully,
his last year in Lightsburg) as a normal person. He is determined to shed
his membership in the Madman Underground.
Karl lives with his mother who, whenever she is not at work, is drunk,
stoned, and seeking out the perfect man. His mother maintains a mind-boggling
population of cats in their house and does not believe in spaying and
neutering, controlling, or cleaning up after them. On top of going to high
school, living in cat stench, and trying to keep up with the long list of
house maintenance tasks that his father, before succumbing to cancer, taught
him to perform regularly , Karl is juggling five -- FIVE -- part time jobs.
The thanks his gets for all his hard work is having to cope with his
mother and her male acquaintances seeking out and "borrowing" hundreds of
dollars from the various stashes that he has squirreled away at home since the
time she emptied his bank account to fund a party. Karl maintains a journal
containing thousands of dollars worth of her worthless IOUs. He plans to
graduate high school and join the army as a sure ticket out of Lightsburg.
How does a kid in this situation keep it together?
The Madman Underground, of which Karl is a member, is a group of students
with problems at home who have -- year after year -- been pulled out of
class on a regular schedule to participate in group sessions with a
never-ending succession of school psychologists. He and his lifelong friend Paul
have been pulled out ("gotten their tickets") since the pair was identified as
having problems while fourth graders, and it was Paul who, by time they
got to high school, had named the group. As Karl explains:
"Supposedly nobody outside the group knew there was a group. Of course we
all knew that wasn't true. High school was like the little clear plastic
tunnels that Paul's hamsters lived in: you could run a long way but never
get out, and always, everyone could see you."
As we follow Karl step by step through the course of six days and 500+
pages, beginning with his hurriedly clearing the cat crap minefield on the
first morning of school, we come to understand the irreplaceable, lifesaving
role that is played by the Madman Underground in the lives of each of its
members. These are kids who all have nightmarish home lives and the only
thing they can count on is each other. How can Karl both leave the group, in
which he is so essential, and maintain his strong friendships with each of
the other members? How can he, himself, survive without them?
"When I looked at him again, he was slowly turning his head on his scrawny
old neck like a door hanging by one hinge and blowing in the breeze, still
trying to work the anger out. 'Karl, when you get old, the only thing you
got left is your friends. Rose'n'me's the only people that remember some
of that stuff we were joking about. Once there's only one of us, which
praise the Lord if he's willing won't be for a long time yet, it'll be like
all that stuff never happened...So if you don't do anything else, you have to
stick up for your friends.'"
In a parallel to the group dynamics of the Madman Underground, we also see
how Alcoholics Anonymous -- which Karl has recently joined -- plays a
similarly essential role in the lives of many of the Lightsburg adults Karl
knows through work, school, and as old friends of his late father.
I was up in the 300s when I lost count of how many times I laughed aloud
while reading it and, yet, it is an incredibly dark and insightful book.
TALES OF THE MADMAN UNDERGROUND is not a gulp it down book: I found myself
needing to consciously take breaks over the course of reading it, and I've
had to think hard for a few days while attempting to write about it.
"When you're a Jet you're a Jet all the way, from your first cigarette to
your last dying day.
When you're a Jet, if the spit hits the fan, you've got brothers around,
you're a family man."
-- Riff from "West Side Story"
In doing so, I keep coming back to the powerful role -- whether for good
or for bad -- that groups play in our lives and in our world. Maslow spoke
of how when one lacks a sense of belonging it can lead to loneliness,
anxiety, and depression. And when it comes to Karl and his friends, there are
plenty of times when, if nobody's got your back, you're in real danger.
Long live the Madman Underground!
Richie Partington, MLIS
Richie's Picks _http://richiespicks.com_ (http://richiespicks.com/)
Moderator, _http://groups.yahoo.com/group/middle_school_lit/_
(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/middle_school_lit/)
BudNotBuddy@aol.com
_http://www.myspace.com/richiespicks_ (http://www.myspace.com/richiespicks)
**************Remember Mom this Mother's Day! Find a florist near you now.
(http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=florist&ncid=emlcntusyelp00000006)
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