Tales of the Madman Underground Characters

We will now take a brief break from our story for a little field trip to the Cynical Young Adult Male Protagonists Hall of Fame. Here in these hallowed halls, we pay tribute to the many teenage boy...

At some point or another, every teenager thinks his or her mom is a little nuts. Let's put it this way: Your mom has been nuts, but for your sake, we hope she's never been "drunk while wearing sexy...

Beth has been through a long line of boyfriends since Karl's dad died, but based on where we leave the Shoemaker family at the end of this book, Bill just might be the one who sticks. An English pr...

Karl's former love interest in the Madmen bunch, Bonny is kind of a cross between a preppy cheerleader and a hippie chick. Really, she sounds like the kind of girl a dude like Karl in the 1970s wou...

Cheryl holds the distinction of being not only the most popular girl in the school but Queen of the Madman Underground. We're not sure how she manages to pull this feat off, but it might have somet...

Of all the adults Karl relates to throughout the book, Coach Gratz, his English teacher, is the one he ends up having the most complex relationship with. When we first meet him, he sure doesn't mak...

Why is it that whenever a new kid shows up in young-adult novels, things get majorly shaken up? In this case, it's the arrival of the brace-faced, would-be genius Marti that begins to reform the fa...

Paul and Karl have practically been best friends since they were in the womb since both of their dads worked in politics. "We were like two pieces of the same guy," Karl says. "I got the muscles an...

Move over, Daria Morgendorffer. Take a seat, Luna Lovegood. Jessica Day, there's another New Girl in town, and it's not you. Face it, girls—you may be quirky, bizarre, and downright scary at time...

The only time Karl's dad makes an appearance in the book is in flashbacks to Karl's childhood. Even though he's kind of, sort of, well, dead, we here at Shmoop still think he's important enough to...

One of the Madmen who serves as a supporting player in Karl's story, Squid ended up in the group because "something awful happened to him, we don't want to think about it, put him in counseling" (3...

In the world of the Madman Underground, Danny is kind of the male version of Cheryl, "a one-man, two-clique wonder, leader of jocks and farm boys alike" (3.16-17). Regardless of how many groups he'...

Mr. Philbin owns Philbin's Drugstore, which is one of exactly three restaurants in Lightsburg. Now, because of the reopening of the movie theater, it's also the only one open late on the weekends....

Bobby Harris and Scott Tierden are Lightsburg High's school bullies, "two real hateful guys who would have been our class clowns if they'd been funny" (4.44). Basically, their primary mission in li...

We imagine there were a lot of guys like Larry in high schools across America during the early 1970s. You know the type—wannabe stoners who read weird science-fiction books, make bizarre comments...

Marti has a ton of problems, and her mom is definitely one of them. For some reason that's beyond us to try to explain, Marti's genius dad who got his Ph.D. by the time he was 23 started going out...

One of Karl's numerous bosses from his five jobs, Karl helps Mr. Browning out with his upholstery business, mostly moving furniture and helping him rebuild collapsed couch frames. Not exactly the m...

The latest addition to the line of therapists who have led the Madman Underground, Leslie Schwinn doesn't exactly seem to have potential when she "floats" (25.49) through the door on her first day....

Dick is "a nice old guy, forty or so" (6.42) who works as a cook at Philbin's. His main significance to Karl is that he's Karl's Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor, and the two chat at Philbin's a lot ab...

Neil is Beth's much younger, on-again, off-again loser boyfriend. He graduated in 1961 and has apparently been hanging around Lightsburg for the last 12 years, doing nothing of significance with hi...

Apparently, Rose Carson was a real dish when she was younger, kind of like that lady from Titanic. We know this because Tom Browning seems to still have a serious thing for her. They have a major h...