Tales of the Madman Underground by John Barnes

I read this book recently. It's about a teenage boy, named Karl Shoemaker, with and alcoholic mom and a father that died of lung cancer. The time perod is 1973. He's in a therapy group at school, the other people in the therapy group are: Cheryl, she's in the Madman Underground because she loses her temper and has crying fits, and she's an incest victim. There's Esquibel, his friends call him Squid, he's in the Madman Underground because he has depression and anger issues, he's done some binge drinking, his mother commited suicide, his stepmom hates him, and his dad drinks and hits him. Bonny is in the Madman Underground because she's abandoned while her parents go on vacations, and she has to keep her house running. Darla is in the Madman Underground because she's also abandoned by her parents and left to keep her house running, and her brother was taken away by children's service because she threatened to blind him with Drano. Danny lives on a farm with an alcoholic dad that hates him, and he is in the Madman Underground because his dad makes him do all the work on the farm, which is falling apart, his dad also hits him and belittles him. Paul is in the Madman Underground because he saw his mom get runover by a car, he's gay and isn't accepted for it, especially by his dad. There's also Marti, she's a new girl that came from a genius school, her dad is a scientist and a professor and he thinks she should be as smart as him. Her mom is an alcoholic, and both of her parents yell at her. Those are all the people in the Madman Underground. This is a very good book and what happens in it is exactly what the title is, the whole book is only about a week's length, but there's flashbacks of old stories about the Madman Underground. This book is sad in some ways, but also funny on ther ways. I recommend this book, it is a very good read.