Altered Carbon and Broken Angels by Richard K. Morgan

If there is such a thing as a literary equivalent of a mash-up, Britain's Richard K. Morgan is surely the current master of the form. Part cyberpunk, part noir thriller, part military adventure, his novels transcend genre, and in many ways traditional characterization. Both Altered Carbon and Broken Angels (and a third novel not reviewed here - Woken Furies) feature Takeshi Kovacs (the name itself a mash-up of sorts), a flawed, honorably violent everyman who we as readers become intimately familiar with, in spite of the fact that we never have any idea what he actually looks like.

And it is this notion of fleeting, deceptive physical appearances that truly marks Morgan's novels as originals. For in the universe inhabited by Takeshi Kovacs, there is no need to stay dead forever. Pretty much everyone in the group of planets known as the "Protectorate" (think Star Trek's Federation of Planets, with a corporate Big Brother thrown into the mix) has a "stack" implanted somewhere around where the brain stem meets the spinal column. This stack is a human's digitized consciousness. Die, and your stack simply has to be retrieved and implanted into another body - or "sleeve," as bodies grown for this purpose are known. Those who are wealthy can afford a massive number of genetically enhanced sleeves, can have their consciousness backed up using any number of failsafe protocols, and can essentially cheat death. The other classes still have to fight and scrabble for their existence, but there are sleeves available even to them - for the right price - either legitimately or through the black market.

This central conceit creates a wealth of literary opportunities for Morgan, but it also raises tremendous philosophical issues, which the warrior/philosopher Kovacs deals with at various levels throughout the novels. Who are we if appearance no longer at least in part dictates our notion of self? What is the value of life when it becomes commoditized? How can we trust ourselves, let alone anyone else, in a universe such as this?

Yet, in spite of their philosophical implications, the novels' triumph is that they don't get bogged down in heavy-handed, teeth-gnashing analysis paralysis. Rather, the philosophical musings about the human condition are couched in what are ultimately riveting, action-driven thrillers. Altered Carbon, the first Takeshi Kovacs novel (and Morgan's first novel as well), doesn't give readers much time to catch their breath, as they are thrown into the midst of a seedy future Earth, where Kovacs is decanted (yet another term for re-sleeving) out of a prison sentence to solve a crime. This first novel is pure crime noir, or future noir, or cyber noir...or, just noir in general if the other appendages don't seem to fit.

The second novel, Broken Angels, takes a surprising departure from the first and becomes largely a military adventure novel on a planet far away from the Earth of the first novel. It is to Morgan's credit that Kovacs is such a robust and versatile character that he can fit a variety of story parameters.

Both novels take a particularly grim and pessimistic view of humanity, which manifests in Kovacs' noir-style first person narration. Still, Kovacs is as conflicted as we are as readers, and his mistakes often make him all the more endearing as a character.

As a word of caution, these novels are for highly mature readers. Morgan doesn't hold back in terms of language, violence or other graphic content. It fits with the universe he has created for Kovacs, but it might not be for every reader.

Playing ball and dodging the bad guys

If you're looking for a truly get summertime read about a group of guys hitting the basketball court, talking about girls and pondering life then look no further than Charles R. Smith's pitch perfect Chameleon. From my current Bookslut column:

Set in the L.A. neighborhood of Compton, Smith follows the trials and travails of four friends preparing to enter high school. The narrator, Shawn, is a bundle of typical teen confusions: he is excited about what high school might bring but also terrified by its sheer size. Shawn also has an awesome crush on a longtime school friend, Marisol which renders him nearly incapable of speech in her presence (and is a great source of hilarity for his friends). There is a lot of basketball, a lot of trying to figure out what to do everyday, a lot of pooling money for food and some lucky run-ins with Marisol and her friends in Chameleon as Shawn and his buds wander through long hot summer days filled with few plans and many daydreams. Where things get complicated is that Compton is a place fraught with peril for teenage boys as two warring gangs zealously guard their turf and their colors on nearly every corner. Shawn has been on the receiving end of gang violence in the past and he and his friends find it again this summer but the book is not a gang novel, it is a firmly and most successfully a buddy novel, and any teenage boy will find much to identify with in Shawn’s thoughtful observations of family, friendship and young love.

Charles R. Smith is best known for his books for younger children, most impressively the biography in poems, Twelve Rounds to Glory: The Story of Muhammad Ali, illustrated by Bryan Collier. (It’s a stunner -- be sure to look it up.) Chameleon is his first YA novel and although it came out last year I have not heard a lot of buzz about it on the blogs. I had a few trepidations about reviewing the novel as my Caucasian suburban female upbringing gives me little basis to judge the merits of a novel involving four African American teen boys who dodge gangs in Compton. I honestly had one of those moments where I wondered if this was a book I should even attempt to review. I found many reasons to care about Shawn and his friends and I very much wanted to know what was going to happen to them as their summer continued. Shawn’s divorced parents, both of whom care about him deeply, were a pleasure to read about and it was particularly gratifying to read Smith’s long discussions between parent and child. This is a kid who knows he is loved and that makes his life so much easier to navigate. It was also nice to read about his friends and their siblings; one has a brother in the navy, another a sister with a track scholarship to college (the other boys are all in love with her) and another a brother who seems to be slipping into the drug lifestyle with a local gang. Smith portrays the people of Compton (including the folks in the neighborhood, the park and on the courts) with great care. Shawn sees the world around him – all of it – as he shoots baskets, trades jokes and nearly faints at the mere site of Marisol. This neighborhood is not a perfect place but it’s one with plenty of hope and possibility as long as you make your choices with care. That’s a valid point in pretty much any teenager’s life and a big part of why I fell in love with Chameleon and knew I had to write about it. Most highly recommended.

Someone's going to have to explain to me why this book isn't way more popular - it's a great coming-of-age story with an added element of drama due to the setting. The kids are so compelling though and Smith tells it like it is - without leaning on the gang setting. It's awesome and should be read asap.

The Ask and the Answer, by Patrick Ness

When I finished reading The Knife of Never Letting Go last year, I *almost* threw it across the room. I did in fact yell "WTF!" Um, although without the abbreviation.

I really was pissed off at the book at first. It did such a dance with its storytelling, pleasing then teasing then frustrating you, with endless twists, double-crosses, dramatic reveals, and seeming dead-ends. I just felt like the final cliffhanger went too far. (Sorry, *way* too many spoilers there to even begin to describe that. Both books, for that matter, are really difficult to describe without ruining much of their fun.)

But after a few days to cool off, I had to grudgingly admit that the book did, indeed, rock. I guess a book can't get its hooks into you like that unless it's really good. And Knife definitely has a lot going for it, with its fast-paced, coming-of-age story (imagine growing up in basically one long chase scene) and bizarro sci-fi dystopia setting (very low key, like the opposite end of the spectrum from space opera). And "the Noise." Can't forget "the Noise." In this world, everyone can hear what you're thinking. If you're a guy, that is. Or an animal. (Hence the book's genius opening line, "The first thing you find out when your dog learns to talk is that dogs don't got nothing much to say.")

Many, many critics agreed on Knife's rocking last year, perhaps most controversially Frank Cotrell Boyce, another YA author. He wondered aloud why the book was even in the "'young adult' ghetto" in stores in the first place, when it should be shelved along with the Handmaid's Tale, Night of the Hunter, Huck Finn, and other books with which it shared its DNA. He also compared it to Matt Damon's "Bourne" movies (which, by the way, were books first), and that's apt in more ways than one.

I just finished the sequel, The Ask and the Answer, and... I didn't throw it across the room. In fact, despite the inevitable cliffhanger (and wow, it's a good one), I was totally satisfied. And filled with dread for what's facing the heroes in the third book (check out a teaser Ness wrote in the meantime).

Maybe I was just prepared this time? In any case, The Ask and the Answer easily matches the quality of the first book. Strangely, the best part of reading it was having it as a mental companion as I've followed what's happening in Iran. The Ask and the Answer has a lot to say about the nature of power, violence, and morality--and when (or whether) we decide to resist those in power, how torture, terrorism, and the control of information can all play a role.

It's a brutal book, I won't lie. The Knife of Never Letting Go was described as the kind of book that's so violent it needs a health warning, and The Ask and the Answer is probably worse in that way. But it's a clever, well-crafted, thought-provoking, and action-packed page turner--i.e., a perfect summer book. If you haven't read The Knife of Never Letting Go, check that out first. But if you have read it and you're wondering whether you should read the second one when it comes out in the U.S. later this summer, plan on it.

GENESIS by Bernard Beckett

Let’s gather some characters: Plato, Aristotle, Pericles, Adam and Eve. What do you get? Actually, a dystopian novel from New Zealand. It’s short, which is good, because much of the book is a dialogue – as in Plato’s Dialogues -- between the main character, Anaximander (named after another Greek philosopher), and four Examiner’s giving “Anax” a kind of oral exam for her to get accepted into the Academy. Genesis is a provocative quick read on some fundamental philosophical questions, such as, What does it mean to be human? and just how “human” can we make artificial intelligence?

This is all taking place, of course, in Plato’s Republic, but we’re not sunning in the Greek Isles here. In fact, in good dystopian fashion, it is the future, there was plague and wars, and a very rich man, who saw the ensuing destruction, bought an island and encircled it with a huge, impenetrable sea wall. Welcome to the future Plato’s Republic.

Enter Anax. She’s a young history student taking her oral exam to gain admittance into the Academy, whose members lead the Republic. Her chosen subject to study was Adam Forde (and yes, there’s a brief appearance by an Eve), who played a key role in the development of the Republic. To give you an idea of the timeframe here, Adam lived from 2058-2077 and that was the distant past to Anax.

The book is divided into four sections, each one an hour “dialogue” between Anax and her four Examiners. There are brief interludes between the sections during her breaks. Much of her exam concerns Adam Forde’s imprisonment in the Republic, with her replaying key moments. The Republic is divided into four classes, and after years in this supposed utopia, the lower classes were getting restless. Who wants to be a laborer when there are riches to be had? The idea is born to perfect a human-like android – artificial intelligence – that can take over those jobs and make the working class happy. But the top android prototype needs more work; in fact, it needs a human to interact with so it can grow and learn and, well... become human? Adam is in prison and in comes Art, an android with a talent for philosophical debate and the face – literally – of an orangutan.

As I swiftly wound my way through Adam’s debates with Art on what it means to be human and have consciousness, and Anax’s questioning by the examiners, it became clear (to me anyway) that Genesis is about much more than questions about what it means to be a thinking human being, and enters into ideas about government and power. I must say I saw the ending coming from afar. But don’t let that stop you from grabbing this fascinating book. When you set it down you will be filled with many more questions than answers.

The Creators of the Original Land of the Lost & Other Stuff

If you’ve seen the Land of the Lost movie you may be wondering what all the fuss was about. Why did anyone care about this remake of a bad show that was already remade on TV once before? (Not to mention that the basic plot was already 100 or so years old.)

The answer: Because those of us who grew up on the original couldn’t get it out of our heads if we tried. Now could we get H.R. Pufnstuf out of our heads. Nor Sigmund and the Sea Monsters. Nor Donny & Marie. Nor any of the other Krofft shows which seemed to be on endless repeat on Saturday mornings in the 70s.

There’s a lot of weird stuff out there today, but is there anything weirder than Lidsville? Go ahead and Youtube it. See? That’s jacked up. Next, try the Banana Splits. Then Pink Lady and Jeff. You can see why these shows stayed with us. How could we ever forget them?

A little bit more YouTubing and maybe even some Netflixing will give you a peek into the uber-strange world of Krofft TV. Your guide to making this trip -- and I do mean trip -- is “Pufnstuf & Other Stuff” by David Martindale.


This book, made with the co-operation of the Kroffts, takes you through shows after show: Dr. Shrinker, Wonderbug, The Bugaloos, The Brady Bunch Hour and on and on. It’s an encyclopedia of whacked out ideas, like: let’s make a Richard Pryor show … for kids! (They really did it, too.)

And it’s full of fascinating tid-bits. For instance, the boy on the show, Will, was played by a young actor who also had a part on a soap opera: “In the mornings, I would be over at Days of Our Lives, crying about my girlfriend’s latest illness. Then I’d rush over to Land of the Lost and yell, ‘Run, Holly, run! There’s a dinosaur.’”

The good news about this book is that the author really knows his “& Stuff” and asks all the right fan boy questions. The bad news is that it does feel way too “authorized” by the Kroffts. Surely Martindale has more to say about these shows, but if he has anything snarky to say he mostly keeps it to himself.

Still, it’s an essential guide to one of the strangest chapters in TV history.

The Curse of Sagamore

Once again, I'm raiding my favorite bookshelf for titles that deserve repeat readings. This time I chose one of the best examples of humorous fantasy novels: The Curse of Sagamore by Kara Dalkey. This book has everything: unhappy princes, sibling rivalry, family curses, treachery, a dragon, oh and some bawdy humor. Who can resist? My answer: you shouldn't.

My Ace Fantasy edition is a bit worn around the edges. But it's held up through repeat reads. I think the book's cover first captivated me. A magical sword leading an army of skeletons against a dragon with a really big schnozz. That was my first clue that this promised to be a funny book. That and good marketing copy for once: "Only one wizard knows how to undo Sagamore's Curse and he's crazy."

I can't recall when I bought the book. It's copyright 1986, so probably around then. And I've loved this book, cherished not only the time spent between its covers but just the memory of its passages. It's the sort of book I want to press into friends' hands. And with this review I can do that... sort of.

Prince Abderian is second-in-line to the throne of Euthymia. But he has no interest in ruling the land. His father is a crappy king and everyone knows it, so there's little urge to be involved in politics. Then, his older brother disappears-kidnapped? murdered? AWOL?--and the appearance of the sigil on Abderian's forearm indicates that he is now the heir. What's a poor kid to do? Well, he does everything he can not to achieve this destiny forced upon him. If that means taking up with crazy wizards, so be it. Oh and some damsels, too.

Abderian is faulty. That's why I adore him so. He's brave when he needs to be. But he wants to be master of his own fate. I've never cared for the fantasy trope of the good prince who saves the kingdom. Except for this book, because Abderian's intentions, while good-hearted, are a bit selfish and realistic. He's written as a teen, with all the interests of a guy his age should have. Of course, he's royalty so that has some perks...

And he has a sex life. Which makes sense. How often do fantasy characters get laid? Seems like poor Frodo was doomed to die a virgin (despite Samwise's best interests... oh, no, I didn't just say that!).

The humor of the book is not forced puns but clever characters and plenty of wit. Oh, and let's not forget the bawdy humor. A recurring jest throughout the book is a song with lyrics detailing the sex lives (and penis size) of the royal lineage. I kept laughing out loud at how these were well-used to provide... well, more characterization. And the last lines of the book are sweet and smart and make you smile.

Here's one curse that you should not avoid. The book's never been reprinted, so you may have to troll used bookstores or search through online seller's virtual dusty bins for it. There's a sequel, too, but I've never read it. I'm afraid to because I love this book so much. If you happen to read the next book and happen upon me, be gentle, please.

Man or Myth?

You may have heard of John Henry or the song of this name, about a man "who was so strong he beat a steam drill in a contest, but then laid down his hammer and died” (p. 9). Prior to reading Ain’t Nothing But a Man My Quest to Find the Real John Henry by Scott Reynolds Nelson and Marc Aronson, I had heard of the song, but didn't know much else. And I have to admit that what little I did know wasn't enough to entice me to pick up this book, until it was suggested to me by two different people and came with the recommendation that "it's great nonfic mix of music and history and folklore, all wrapped up in a mystery.”

Nelson, a historian, spent years researching the many versions of the song, determined to discover whether John Henry could have actually lived or was simply a myth. Nelson needed a few serendipitous discoveries and a lot of persistence, but he ultimately puts together the clues that point him toward the man he argues is the John Henry of the song. Recounting the discoveries that led him to conclude John Henry actually existed, Nelson's narrative touches on music, railroads, Reconstruction, and more.

Written in a conversational but authoritative style, this book is a pleasure to read. Even if you’re ultimately not convinced by every argument Nelson makes (I do think Nelson makes a convincing case that the John Henry he found is the John Henry of the song, but I’m not quite as convinced, as a non-musicologist, about all of the arguments concerning the evolution of music), the story of how he followed disparate leads is fascinating. Nelson demonstrates how he searched for primary source evidence to find John Henry, immersing the reader in the hunt for clues along with Nelson.

If you're at all interested in history and/or music, give this book a try.

When the Whistle Blows

Fran Cannon Slayton's debut, When the Whistle Blows, has garnered a lot of critical attention, earning praise all over the book world including starred reviews from Kirkus and School Library Journal. It's one of those books that you read and can't quite believe is the author's first novel. It's a beauty. You need to read it not just because everyone else loves it. Read it because this is a story that will sneak up on you and leave you with the feeling that you've just read something that has all the makings of a classic.

When the Whistle Blows is the story of Jimmy Cannon, who lives in Rowlesburg, West Virginia. It's the 1940s and the railroad is the lifeblood of the town, and it is also Jimmy's passion. He is crazy about steam trains, and he dreams of working on the railroad just like his dad, who is the Baltimore and Ohio foreman. Jimmy's dad doesn't want his son to choose this life, because he predicts that the new diesel technology will cut railroad jobs dramatically. Yet Jimmy doesn't want to walk away from the future he has always imagined. The railroad is a part of his family and his identity. Each chapter in the novel is set on All Hallows' Eve (Jimmy's father's birthday), between the years 1943-1949, so we watch Jimmy grow up from age 12 to 18. We follow Jimmy as he orchestrates pranks with his buddies, when he sneaks a look inside his father's secret society, on the day of his high school football Championship game, and one fateful night when he has a dangerous encounter with a train.


This novel is a marvelous snapshot of small town boyhood in the 1940s. Fran Cannon Slayton really makes you understand the railroad and its huge significance to the people of Rowlesburg. Even though this novel is set long ago, it has real resonance in the current economic climate since now, as then, lots of people are struggling with letting go of livelihoods that they've known for decades. Really, just as much as this is a tremendously believable and rich coming of age story, it's about change in a larger sense too, the change of a community and an entire society. Jimmy's dad tells him, "Change comes Jimmy. It'll thunder down the tracks towards you like an engine with the brakes gone out. And sometimes, there ain't a dagburn thing you can do to stop it." Jimmy learns what it means to face change and to make choices about whether to stand up against it, or to adapt and keep on moving.

Woven into all of this is Jimmy's complex relationship his father. Jimmy desperately wants to figure his dad out, but it takes him a long time to even begin to get to the bottom of his father's mysterious past. I enjoyed the structure of Slayton's book a great deal. Each chapter felt a bit like a self-contained short story, but they built upon each other and the overall effect was a richer appreciation of the characters and the family relationships. You really do get to watch Jimmy grow up, from an adventurous prankster / dreamer, into a young man who confronts loss and uncertainty for the first time. There's romance, but it's not of the lovey-dovey variety. It's the romance of the railroad. You'll feel it.

In When the Whistle Blows, there's rule-breaking and humor, loss and family secrets, all explored and mingled together with such deftness and clean writing that readers will certainly recognize Fran Cannon Slayton as a new writer to watch.

When the Whistle Blows is published by Philomel, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group.

Summertime and I loves me some comics!

(By the way: 1--I'm sorry this is so late today, and 2--looks like I'm not the only one who thinks of comics when I think of summer. This looks like graphic novels week!)

Summer means lots of things to different folks, but for me it’s all about a fat stack of books and comics with all the time in the world to read them. Especially comics. Summertime made my father anxious, something about idle hands do the devil’s handiwork, so I always had to get a job. But no job, no camp, nothing eats up the kind of time school and school work do. So it just mean I had disposable income and time to hunt for comics.

Yeah, nowadays, American comics are kind of byzantine and dumb, and yeah, Manga provides more bang for the buck. Oh, and you don’t have to search to find an entire storyline because they have the collections readily available, both in comics shops and in bookstores. But let me give you a taste of some comics new, cool, and fresh enough you might have to do some hoofing (or at least burn a little time on your search engine) to find all the issues.


Hang on—you might say when you hear me call American comics “Byzantine and dumb” or “Manga has more bang for the buck”—What’s your beef with the good ol’ red white and blue superhero? Nothing, I say, except that today’s writers aren’t writing good stories. They’re writing fan fiction for thirty year olds. Really. I mean, I read most every Avenger story for the last twenty-five years, kept up with Green Lantern, Flash, X-Men—but I lost track of things for a year or two recently, and suddenly I have no idea what’s going on. Not just because they require arcane knowledge of story points from thirty year old comics, but also because my eyes glaze over trying to read them. They’re boring!

I remember reading comics, not knowing who the hell anybody was, and yet I was electrified by how exciting, fun, and engrossing they were. I not only couldn’t wait for the next issue, I wanted to know what had happened in the past as well. And that’s when the hunt was on.

Recently, I’ve come across several comics that are fun, though. Comics that capture the gonzo, go for broke, sheer awesomeness of simply being what they are—stories about superheroes out to save the world, two fists at a time (or whatever their superpower may be). They don’t have to solve world problems, they don’t attempt to be “serious” or “mature,” and they sure as hell avoid nostalgia. What are these titles?

Well, last month I was giving the heads up on some Greek classics, and I tossed in the Incredible Hercules as a comic worth reading. This is what I said:

“Marvel Comics’ The Incredible Hercules is awesome. It’s awesome in the way that every comic I loved as a teenager was awesome, and it’s awesome in the way I now get geeky over references to Greek mythology. Just a pure pleasure of a superhero comic, something I’m finding harder and harder to find nowadays-but that’s a topic for another post.

Suffice it to say, if you like good-old four-color two-fisted comics, this one is hard to beat. Hercules punches his way through any problem, and there’s lots of rollicking good fun in there, as he faces off against his half-brother Ares, his stepmother Hera, still holding a grudge 3000 years later, Amazons, alien pantheons of gods… Just great, great stuff.”

There’s this moment in an early issue of Incredible Hercules when Herc turns to someone quibbling with him over some story he’s telling them about his past. I’m paraphrasing, but he essentially says “Ignore continuity—this is myth, and these stories are too big to fit together nicely.” I wish every comic had that as its mantra.


Another great comic is the current run on Ghost Rider. Now, here’s a character I never cared for, but I’d heard so many good things about the current run I had to go out and see it for myself. It’s like coming home—like somebody who spent lots of time getting a fancy college degree did the whole thing so they could return home to Alabama, or Georgia, or Kentucky, or wherever their Southern roots raised them, just to shake their fists at grits and James Joyce both. It’s as if they’re writing the apocalypse while listening to Robert Earl Keene (don’t know the name? Watch the video for his "Merry Christmas from the Family" on YouTube) or Alan Moore was raised in Clinton, Mississippi.

Okay, you get the idea. But here’s the thing: Ghost Rider is fun and interesting because it’s awesomely exactly what you’d think it’d be—a dude kicking ass with a burning skull and an enormous motorcycle. Sure, there’s the occasional invocation of worldly things like a Brahmin Spirit of Vengeance atop a flaming skulled Ganesh-evoking sacred elephant, but for the most part he fights demonic truck drivers and sweaty, corrupt evil—real devil-went-down-Georgia kind of stuff. Again, awesome.

Okay, if neither over-the-top ancient mythology meets modern superheroes nor southern gothic supernatural hero horror grabs you, imagine Dracula not as the creature of the night loner cartoon he’s been made out to be, but a beguiling, uncanny, devious dictator of his own vampire army—his own vampire nation, even. Now they’re looking for a home, and have set their sights on the British Isles. Captain Britain and MI 13 (that's the pic at the top of the post) is fascinating because it does some of the exact things I complained about above—reach back into the way past for story ideas, depend on continuity for semi and even totally obscure characters—only it does them effortlessly, in ways that are captivating, mesmerizing even, and never gets bogged down in “what you need to know.”

So there you have it, three ongoing comics* that are worth buying before they are collected in books (although I think they’ve already done that with the Herc material). They’re even worth hunting down recent back-issues for. There’s some other comics that are similarly fun—the first 15-20 issues of Iron Fist, for example. I hear Agents of Atlas and Thor are also great fun. But why these and not the main titles from the big two American Comics publishers? My theory is that these comics are kind of obscure, they’re a bit of a throwaway, below-the-radar thing for the big-time editors. So the creators involved, from the writers and artists to the editors, are more free to do what they will, and they care more about telling engaging, fun stories than stories that depend on lots of “big/important” moving parts.

Anyways, take one of my suggestions, plop down with an issue or two, and take a few moments, not an hour—this isn’t rocket science and it’s no fun if you treat it as such—take a few moments to delve into some all-out fun reads.


*Here's a weird thing: I noticed that all my suggestions are Marvel Comics. I don't know why. For years I thought Marvel was doing everything stupid and DC comics were the best. Now, it's pretty much the opposite. Hopefully it'll turn around soon.

Tales of the Madman Underground by John Barnes

Supposedly nobody outside the therapy 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.

Tales of the Madman Underground opens on the first day of senior year, and Karl Shoemaker has one goal: be normal.

Since eighth grade, he’s been in the school’s therapy group, the self-appointed Madman Underground. Karl is tired of being called a “psycho,” though. He hopes if he can act like an ordinary kid until Halloween, he’ll avoid getting put in therapy altogether.

But acting ordinary is hard when your life is so chaotic.

At seventeen, Karl is already a regular at AA meetings. His dad died several years ago, and his mom has become a hippie burn-out who brings home loser guys and steals Karl’s money to buy pot and party.

Besides Karl, the rest of the Madmen (and Madwomen) have parents who are abusive, crazy themselves, or just have more exciting things to do than raise kids. Tales of the Madman Underground is about kids who have to grow up fast. Their underground stretches beyond the therapy sessions; it’s the support network they’ve stitched together to look after one another: places to crash when they get locked out of their houses, the search party that forms when one of their number runs away.

With all the craziness in his life, Karl’s plan to be normal is pretty much doomed from the start, but really the plot hardly matters in a book like this. Tales of the Madman Underground takes 500-plus pages to wander through six days. It’s stuffed with flashbacks of the Madmen’s past misadventures and Karl’s half-philosophical/ half-obscene observations about everything and everybody in his little Ohio town.

Sometimes wandering seems like lost, though, and stuffed just feels bloated. Told from Karl’s first-person POV, the book includes everything he does and every conversation he has through those six days, no matter how mundane. I’m not sure what I learned from the complete rundown of his morning routine--timed to the minute--or the two pages describing him replacing an old toilet. After awhile, I started wondering if Karl--or maybe John Barnes--has undiagnosed obsessive compulsive disorder.

But even if the book swells with too many details, a lot of the details are sharp and well-observed. Karl’s addict mom bounces between childish manipulation, whining self-pity, and half-hearted stabs at being a real parent. When Karl deals with her, it’s with a mix of anger at how she acts and a son’s eternal affection. His teachers and the parade of fresh-from-college therapists are generally well-meaning but mostly useless.

The Madmen themselves are the best-drawn characters. As his plan to be normal falls apart, Karl begins to see what they really are: friends-by-necessity who’ve learned to trust one another, to comfort one another, and who always have time for one more wild tale.

(Cross-posted on my blog.)