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So Joey finds himself withdrawn from the school where he's been making progress, living in a rundown cottage behind a diner outside town, and complete with a new name, Freddy Heinz, dressed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.

Wired: Joey Pigza, ADHD Poster Child

His ADHD means that he’s always “wired bad, or wired mad, or wired sad, or wired glad,” but Joey Pigza is a strong and sweet kid who survives in a chaotic family in which, in the words of his dying, manic grandmother, “...you got better, and the rest of the world didn’t.”

But Joey's ability to survive and thrive is by no means a sure thing. In Jack Gantos' award-winning trilogy, Joey is buffeted by his uncontrollable impulses and emotions and by the push and pull of his impossibly dysfunctional family. In the first book in the series, Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key, Joey, a third-generation ADHD child, is back under the care of his mother, who had left him in infancy with his "whacked-out" grandma to chase after his ADHD father.

Although his mother has good intentions, Joey is not an easy child to love or manage. At school his "dud meds" wear off by noon and leave him a loose cannon in the classroom. Joey tries to sharpen his fingernails in the pencil sharpener, falls out of the rafters of an Amish barn on a field trip, swallows his door key, and seriously injures another student, leading to a six-weeks' suspension at a "scary Special Education School." There Joey finds help in the form of "Special" Ed, an empathetic teacher who sees the good kid inside and gets him on a behavior program and time-release medication. By the book's close, Joey earns his pet, a Chihuahua named Pablo, and permission to return to his regular class.

But in the Pigza family, peace doesn't last long. In Joey Pigza Loses Control, Joey's father sues his mom for summer visitation, and Joey is off for a six-weeks' emotional roller-coaster ride with his erratic, beer-guzzling father and his chain-smoking, chronically ill grandma, both of whom are in constant war with each other. In the throes of a manic phase Joey's father declares will power the secret to success and throws away Joey's medication. Joey desperately tries to win his father's approval by pitching for his dad's PAL team, but when his ball control and self control dissolve in the playoffs, his father's reaction shows that he is the one dangerously out of control, and Joey is forced to call his mom to come to his rescue. As they drive home, Joey has to realize that he can never count on his dad for anything.

"Dad needs meds," I said.
"He's been self-medicated forever," Mom replied.
"He needs help," I said.
"He doesn't believe in help," she said.
"He needs me," I said.
"Sure he does," she said. "But he's still too messed up to know it."

What Would Joey Do? brings a showdown between Joey's battling parents. His father buzzes the house in his muffler-less motorcycle, and his mother's response is to chase him down the street with a broom. Joey's grandma and her oxygen tank are back on their sofa behind a shower curtain for privacy. Grandma tells Joey that she is waiting to die until he shows that he can make a friend. To add to this pressure, Joey's mom sends him to be home schooled with Olivia, a mean and restless blind girl, whose mother greets him daily with "What would Jesus do?" Ironically, Joey comes to realize that he is the most stable person in his household, and in his self-termed persona as "Mr. Helpful," he tries desperately to fix everyone's problems. Although his efforts only conclude in a surreal Thanksgiving food fight between his out-of-control parents, Joey does make a friend of Olivia and comes to understand what his dying grandma has been trying to tell him. When he finally finds her dead one morning, Joey reflects upon her advice to take care of himself first:

Whatever hurtful things she had ever said or done all vanished, and I felt as if I had lost the one person who understood me better than anyone else. We were alike. And that's why she wanted me to move on in the world, so I wouldn't end up dying on a couch behind a shower curtain in someone else's house.

Joey does move on, with the realization that "as long as I helped myself, I'd be going in the right direction." His essential goodness and resiliency do triumph as he learns to make his own rational choices. Although his story seems grim, Joey's first-person narration is a funny, deeply moving, and realistic look a a multi-generational struggle with his disorder. Parents, teachers, school administrators, and children with or without ADHD should read these three books for an honest, painful, but hopeful walk in Joey Pigza's shoes.

Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key was a National Book Award finalist, and Joey Pigza Loses Control was a Caldecott Honor Book. What Would Joey Do? received the Parents' Choice Silver Honor Award.