Book excerpt: The Chronicles of Mad Maxine tells one woman's story of training to be a lady wrestler at the Fabulous Moolah's School of Professional Wrestling. The novel, set on the 30-acre training camp in Columbia, South Carolina, is a fictionalized account of author Jeannine Mjoseth's experiences in the mid-1980s, when she became skilled at flying head scissors, the soaring suplex and the body slam. Both hardcore wrestling fans and people who've never seen a match will thrill to the raw action both inside and outside of Camp Moolah's training ring. The novel's main character, Pippi, is a passionate young reporter who wants to infiltrate the world of professional wrestling for a live-it, write-it journalism project. But she doesn't just observe the world of slaps, punches and bumps and she can't betray trainees with whom she's developed deep friendships. Instead, she throws herself into training and emerges as Mad Maxine, a 6'2" grappler with a mohawk. At the head of the enterprise is the Fabulous Moolah, an infamous lady wrestler turned manager who has clawed her way to the top from dirt-poor beginnings. Pippi gets a hard lesson about her deceitful ways during her first match for the World Wrestling Federation. Meanwhile, Pippi accepts a dangerous freelance assignment covering a KKK rally for an African American newspaper. Her wrestling and journalism worlds collide when the KKK invades Camp Moolah. Pippi and her wrestling buddies make a narrow escape from the Fabulous Moolah's clutches and speed to Albuquerque. Their mission: to rescue an underaged wrestler who Moolah has pimped out to a podiatrist with a taste for straining lady muscles.