Book excerpt: Clown Town is true story/social Chicago history of a baby boomer's struggle with death phobia filtered through a child's perspective. The title refers to an imaginary world created by the young protagonist, Pudgie, to pacify his younger friend's curiosity about the real world of school. Pudgie's real world, however, is a horrific world of indignity, humiliation, anger, and fear. Clown Town is a utopian world of fantasy for young boys growing up in a Chicago suburb during the 1950s. The Prologue establishes the adult first-person narrator in the present tense. He is forced to reminisce about his youth when the eminent death of his mother rekindles old fears and personality quirks that had haunted his life. His journey backward leads the reader to the death of a neighborhood man, the death of Pudgie's grandfather, and the death of a schoolmate in a historic Chicago school fire of 1958. Pudgie also struggles with a volatile temper when teased about his crossed left eye. The temper threatens his existence in a "normal" school. Along the way, the narrative treats the reader to a nostalgic look at the 1950s (the music, the cars, the TV shows, the movies, the mores), a naive child's interpretation of sex, and an adult perspective of childhood adventures such as smoking, competing in sports, and participating in petty crime.