Tales of the Madman Underground

June 1, 2009
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.

Starred review from July 1, 2009
Gr 9 Up-Karl Shoemaker, in group therapy at school since fourth grade, turns a new leaf on the first day of senior year, 1973. His goal is to be normal and avoid therapy while still keeping his friends, who are all part of the Madman Underground. Karls widowed mother is an alcoholic, hippie, conspiracy-theorist slut who steals his earnings (he has five jobs) for benders. At one time or another, most Madmen are locked out of their houses by drunk or absent parents, or dont go home to avoid getting beaten, or felt up. They depend on one anothers hospitality by way of empty basements, open windows, and unlocked cars. Barnes writes with amazing ease and clarity. He has a light, immediate feel for character, and the ensemble of Madmen, teachers, parents, and crotchety townspeople is distinct and fully formed. Dialogue between Karl and this motley crew is mostly hilarious, expletive laden, and consistently flawless. Karls conversations with Marti, the newest Madman, are among the most heart-melting in teen literature. Barness descriptions of small-town Ohio defy the usual pitfalls of the back-when-the-author-was-a-teen settingLightsburg is so believably backward it seems timeless. While a moral dilemma may seem an underwhelming plot device, Karls psychological journey is consistently gripping. His narration is so easy and engaging, so sweet and funny, so astonishingly truthful that teens will rip through these 500-plus pages and want more."Johanna Lewis, New York Public Library"

Copyright 2009 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 25, 2009
Karl Shoemaker is determined to be "perfectly, ideally, totally normal" for the first day of his senior year of high school. The odds are against him. Karl is a member of Madman Underground, a group therapy session for teens in trouble. Karl's brand of trouble involves an alcoholic mom, five jobs, a houseful of feral cats, and the well-earned moniker Pyscho. Follow Karl over the next six days (and 500-plus pages) as he learns that for a Madman, normalcy is overrated. Why It Is for Us: The "historical" part of this romance will appeal to fans of Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confused. Our protagonist swings from being, as one of his friends calls him, a "regular Sir Gallahad" to chilling fits of anger. This book is the first, and not the last, title on this list that details the impact of bad parenting on kids.-Angelina Benedetti, King Cty. Lib. Syst., WA

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from May 1, 2009
Grades 9-12 *Starred Review* After a long career in science fiction, Barnes has taken a heroic stab at the Great American Novel. Set over the span of just six days in 1973but weighing in at more than 500 pagesBarnes coming-of-age epic is overlong, tangled with tangents, and takes a kitchen-sink approach when it comes to teenage trauma. Yet rarely will you read something so lovingly vulgar, so fiercely warmhearted, and so exuberantly expansive that even its long-windedness becomes part of its rogue charm. Its the story of Karl Shoemaker, a senior starting the first week of classes in his blue-collar Ohio town. This year hes determined to execute Operation Be Fucking Normal, but that isnt easy when he is working five jobs to pay the bills of his drunkard, star-child mother; wakes up early to clean up the poop from their zillions of cats (and bury the dead ones in their backyard Cat Arlington); and is deeply connected to the other kids forced to take school therapyaka the Madman Underground. The plot is slight, but Karls fellow madmen revel in their wild tales of survival and revenge, and the culmination comes off like a high-school One Flew over the Cuckoos Nest. Always ambitious, often caustic, and frequently moving.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2010
Karl Shoemaker relates his heroic efforts to be "normal" over the first six days of the school year; as his narrative meanders into flashbacks, the difficulty becomes clear. Karl is part of a long-running high school therapy group called the Madman Underground. These eclectic, eccentric, and endearing characters navigate their troubled lives with youthful insouciance and gallows humor.

(Copyright 2010 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

September 1, 2009
"I had developed this theory all summer: if I could be perfectly, ideally, totally normal for the first day of my senior year, which was today, then I could do it for the first week, which was only Wednesday through Friday." Karl Shoemaker relates his heroic efforts at such an attempt over the first six days of the school year, but as his narrative frequently meanders into flashback scenes, it becomes abundantly clear just how difficult this is going to be. Karl is part of a long-running high school therapy group, the Madman Underground, whose moniker is inspired by Catcher in the Rye and On the Road (and, not surprisingly, this novel captures something of the essence of those classics -- the mesmerizing, acerbic narrative voice of Salinger and the verbose stream-of-consciousness prose style of Kerouac). Every type of dysfunction known to humankind seems to be represented in the Madman Underground, and yet these eclectic, eccentric, and endearing characters navigate their troubled lives not so much with typical teenage angst as with youthful insouciance and gallows humor. The pacing is leisurely, almost nonexistent, but the real draw of this novel lies in the brilliant character study of Karl Shoemaker.

(Copyright 2009 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)