What's In a Name? I Am Not Joey Pigza by Jack Gantos

"You think I'm your old good-for-nothing dad Carter Pigza, coming back to cause trouble like before," he started like some wise old owl who could read my mind. "But I'm not Carter Pigza anymore. Nope. You can forget about that Carter guy. He's history! I'm a new person now. It's like I died and was reincarnated. It's like you've never seen me before. Like you don't know a thing about me--not even my real name. It's like I'm a mystery man to you."

I'm a myssssstery man," he hissed, then ran his hand back across his face, which spookily refocused his features.

"Slam the door, Joey! Run, run for your life," you want to shout, as Joey Pigza, fiction's ADHD poster child, is off for another screw-loose episode with his ADHD-addled, mostly missing father Carter and his scatter-brained mother Fran in the fourth book of the funny, sad, and moving Joey Pigza series.

Just when Joey thinks he's finally rid of his father's off-and-on, mostly hurtful reappearances, here he is again, dressed in a dark suit and red tie, with a fair-sized lottery-winnings check in his pocket, claiming to be a changed man, right down to his new name, Charles Heinz. Sadly for Joey, his mom Fran, usually the common-sense center of the family, falls hook, line, and sinker for the remade man, and Joey is drawn into another of Carter's harebrained schemes, this time a plan to reunite the family and resurrect a defunct diner with a bee-themed menu.

So Joey finds himself withdrawn from the school where he's been making progress, living in a rundown cottage behind a diner outside town, and complete with a new name, Freddy Heinz, dressed in a bee costume hawking the opening of the diner with a sign which reads "COMING SOON! BEEHIVE DINER FAST FOO." When Joey points out that his father failed to leave room for the D in FOOD, Carter passes it off with a "When people see the mistake it will make them look twice. One of the great rules of advertising is that there is no such thing as bad publicity." That speech is Carter Pigza in a nutshell.

Joey and Fran are drawn deeper and deeper into Carter's particular brand of craziness as the couple plans an extravagant "re-wedding" devoted to the theme of forgiveness for the mistakes made in their tumultuous relationship. Fran is drawn into credit card heaven as she recklessly makes up for years of frugality with a version of mall madness, even buying a new minivan to haul her loot home. Carter also runs through his winnings and then turns to a series of maxed-out credit cards, even one which he fraudulently opens in Joey's name, to float his spending on the hopeless diner project.

When Fran confides to Joey that he is going to have a little brother, Joey is happy, but soon the downward spiral of his parents' delusionary living bring the whole thing crashing down. Carter again abandons Fran, Joey, and, by this time, the new baby as well, zipping off from the hospital, explaining that he's off to "find out who he is." Joey is not surprised.

"It was all over. His return, the rewedding, the name change, the diner--everything went down the street with him. He had left me behind, and I was returning to my old self. And you know me--I can't stay mad for very long."

"Granny was right," I said. "When you forgive someone it does make you stronger. It makes your heart bigger than your hate."

Granny was also right years before, when she pointed out to Joey, "You got better and the rest of the world didn't." It is clear that Joey Pigza, ADHD and all, is the closest thing to a responsible adult that his family has. Jack Gantos' portrayal of a good-hearted kid who somehow holds onto his own center in a slip-sliding world shines forth brightly in this new novel.

For reviews of the three previous award-winning Joey Pigza books, see my post, titled Wired: Joey Pigza, posted on May 4.