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Overview
You could say that my railroad, the Madham Line, is almost the most important thing in my life. Next to Andy Morrow, my best friend.
Lots of people think Doug Hanson is a freak — he gets beat up after school, and the girl of his dreams calls him a worm. Doug's only refuge is creating an elaborate bridge for the model railroad in his basement and hanging out with his best friend, Andy Morrow, a popular football star who could date any girl in school. Doug and Andy talk about everything — except what happened at the Tuttle place a few years back.
It does not matter to Andy that we live in completely different realities. I'm Andy's best friend. It does not matter to Andy that we hardly ever actually do anything together.
As Doug retreats deeper and deeper into his own reality, long-buried secrets threaten to destroy both Doug and Andy — and everything else in Doug's fragile world.
Doug and Andy are unlikely best friends--one a loner obsessed by his model trains, the other a popular student involved in football and theater--who grew up together and share a bond that nothing can sever.
Synopsis
Lots of people think Doug Hanson is a freak — he gets beat up after school and the girl of his dreams calls him a worm. Doug's only refuge is building elaborate model trains in his basement and hanging out with his best friend, Andy Morrow. Andy is nothing like Doug: He's a popular football star who could date any girl in school. Despite their differences, Doug and Andy talk about everything — except what happened at the Tuttle place a few years back.
As Doug retreats deeper and deeper into his own world, long-buried secrets come to light — and the more he tries to keep them invisible, the looser his grip on reality becomes. In this fierce, disturbing novel, Pete Hautman spins a poignant tale about inner demons, and how far one boy will go to control them.
Publishers Weekly
In a starred review, PW wrote, "Hautman once again proves his keen ability for characterization and for building suspense in this painfully sad novel," which centers on an introverted math whiz's downward spiral. Ages 12-up. (Nov.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Editorials
From the Publisher
"Echoes of Faulkner."— Kirkus
"With its excellent plot development and unforgettable, heartbreaking protagonist, this is a compelling novel of mental illness."
— School Library Journal, starred review
"Hautman once again proves his keen ability for characterization and for building suspense."
— Publishers Weekly, starred review
Publishers Weekly
In a starred review, PW wrote, "Hautman once again proves his keen ability for characterization and for building suspense in this painfully sad novel," which centers on an introverted math whiz's downward spiral. Ages 12-up. (Nov.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.Children's Literature
Doug Hanson has "crooked teeth and poor coordination," wears "stupid clothes," and has the popular, talented Andy Morrow as a best friend. Next to Andy, the most important thing in his life is his Madham Line, the locomotive set left to him by his grandfather. Dougie's obsessive nature has led him to turn this train set into a town, where he's in the process of finishing an eleven-foot suspension bridge built of matchsticks that he has sanded, stripped of tips, and glued together from over 22,400 matches. Dougie's precision and troubled quality are immediately apparent to readers. Soon we watch him spiral downward. He gets caught for peeping on a popular girl and phoning in a bomb threat. Why does he always get in trouble when his best friend Andy seems close by? And what is the troubling event that happened to Andy? Spare writing, carefully-selected details, and a curious voice lend suspense to this story, but readers will be little prepared for the realities of Dougie's life or the book's tragic end. 2005, Simon and Schuster, Ages 11 up.—Susie Wilde
VOYA
Doug Hanson is as profoundly disturbed as a teen can get. At seventeen, he still communicates with his best friend, Andy, killed two years ago in a fire that Doug was partly responsible for setting. Targeted in high school by his fellow students for his deeply weird behavior, Doug loses himself in the basement of his home, constructing an exquisitely detailed miniature railroad, complete with bridges and people and town buildings, all made out of headless matchsticks. Doug's home life is a misery. His bullying, punishing, professor father has cowed Doug's mother and will not tolerate Doug's obvious slide toward a mental breakdown, despite regular sessions with a therapist. Mr. Hanson cannot tolerate imperfection even when Doug is caught stalking a fellow student and the police come knocking. With excruciating care, Hautman builds an unbearable tension toward disaster. At the beginning of the book, Doug has designed a sigil, a seal using a combination of Doug's and Andy's initials. As the story careens toward inevitable tragedy, the sigil devolves into ever more obscure versions until it is an unreadable but arresting sign of impending horror. Schools and parents continue to ignore the costs of bullying at their own and their children's peril. Hautman takes the reader into the very core of the victim and the dynamics of heartless targeting, and forces all to accept responsibility for stopping the cycle of violence. VOYA CODES: 5Q 5P M J S (Hard to imagine it being any better written; Every YA (who reads) was dying to read it yesterday; Middle School, defined as grades 6 to 8; Junior High, defined as grades 7 to 9; Senior High, defined as grades 10 to 12). 2005, Simon & Schuster, 160p.,Ages 11 to 18.—Beth E. Andersen