Tales of the Madman Underground

I've been going back to the local public library since they laid on (opposite of laid off?) my friend who worked there and began buying new books again. Last time I was there, my friend handed me a new YA book that hadn't even made it to the shelf yet, Tales of the Madman Underground, by John Barnes.

It was an interesting but ultimately disappointing book; it reminded me a lot of Whale Talk in that it was about a teenage boy learning to be tough and make it on his own. This boy, whose name is Karl but who is sometimes called "Psycho," is making it on his own because he's afraid that if he tells anyone how out of control his life is, he'll be taken away from his remaining living parent, his mother.

Tales of the Madman Underground is set in 1973, which I think decreases its appeal to the young adult audience. It's designed to appeal to readers, though, starting from Karl's introduction as a terribly sensitive fourth-grader:
"Mrs. Daggett was reading us "The Steadfast Tin Soldier," the part right before the end when the paper doll blows into the fire. I started to cry because I knew we were coming up on the part where they would find the tin heart in the ashes, and just knowing that was coming was too much for me."

It will also appeal to readers who live in small-town Ohio (although not those who used to live there and now feel nostalgic about it):
"Philbin was about as nice a shop owner as you're going to find in a little Ohio town--nicer, actually, most of them are fat hollering self-satisfied flag-waving assholes for Jesus, not to mention their bad qualities."

One of the best things about this book is the dialogue, especially between Karl and his friends, the other kids who have to go to school-sponsored therapy and call themselves the madman underground:

A car horn honked. When I looked up, it was Marti. She rolled down her window and said, "Hey, little boy. Wanna come for a ride in my car? I have candy!"
There's a rule or something that if a girl can crack you up, you have to do what she says. As soon as I had closed the door, Marti said, "I just wanted to say I'm sorry about blowing up at you last night. I mean, no wonder I've never had any friends, hunh?"
"You're pretty cool," I said.
"Really cool, or just cool for a titless genius?"
"I told you before those assholes meant for you to hear that."
"You know, when someone hurts my feelings, somehow it does not comfort me to know that it was deliberate." She went around a corner with a squeal of tires. "On the other hand, knowing that someone else thinks they are assholes helps a great deal."
"I think that's some kind of rule for the universe."

The other good--albeit discouraging--thing about this book is the way the passages in which Karl has to deal with school still ring true:
"'So,' Gratz said, 'you're going to defend calling one of the greatest books in American literature a story about a couple of queers on a raft.'
That was the third time I'd heard that phrase. Any time I was asked about Leslie Fiedler, obviously, I was supposed to say that he was the professor who had called Huckleberry Finn a story about a couple of queers on a raft. One thing about school, no matter how important or crazy or upsetting things are, there's always something trivial you should be thinking about instead."
My kids enthusiastically agreed with that description of a small-town Ohio high school.

And I was amused at this portrait of an English professor in 1973:
"He had on a Greek fisherman's cap....His corduroy jacket (with elbow patches and big lapels) matched his corduroy pants (with big cuffs). He had hair the color of Saturday night bathwater in a big family, all curly and fro'd up to hide its thinness, a big droopy mustache, and huge puppy dog eyes. He looked like an English professor that wanted to be a folksinger, which is to say, a dork who wanted to be a bigger dork."

Despite all these good things, though, the plot ended up seeming dated. Finally some adults notice the trouble Karl has keeping his life together with an alcoholic mother who locks him out of the house and steals the money he makes working five jobs. Finally his friends learn to stand up for themselves and each other.

The main thing I will take away from reading this book was remembering the effect it had on me when elementary-school teachers read books out loud. I loved--and still love--a book entitled Johnny Tremaine simply because it was read out loud to my class every day after lunch. Do you remember one book like that--one that you might not have loved if you'd discovered it on your own, but which you loved because it was read out loud to you by a teacher?