When Rafe Khatchadorian enters middle school, he teams up with his best friend, "Leo the Silent," to create a game to make school more fun by trying to break every rule in the school's code of conduct.

There is a lot going on in his life that thirteen-year-old Tony Miglione does not really understand--like why his parents suddenly have money enough to buy a house on Long Island, why his mother has changed, why his rich friend Joel shoplifts, why he is obsessed with Joel's sixteen-year-old sister, and why he is having terrible stomach pains.

In September 1973, as the school year begins in his depressed Ohio town, high-school senior Kurt Shoemaker determines to be "normal," despite his chaotic home life with his volatile, alcoholic mother and the deep loyalty and affection he has for his friends in the therapy group dubbed the Madman Underground.