Summary

“Madmen” is told by a first-person female narrator, speaking in retrospect. She begins by telling us “the day I got my period, my mother and father took me to pick my madman” (21). She refers to the day as her “big day,” remembering when her friend Carrie got her madman. The narrator asks Carrie how she knew which madman was hers, and Carrie responds by saying she knew because he “wouldn’t look at [her]” (23). The narrator remembers sleeping over at Carrie’s house and seeing Carrie and her madman “standing forehead to forehead” (24).

The narrator and her mother drive to the facility which holds the madmen. On the way there, the narrator’s mother talks on the phone and the narrator says her mother has “endless empathy,” then confessing that sometimes she (the narrator) “feels bad” because she does not have the same empathy...