All Joe Lake has to do, according to his Dad, is GO TO SCHOOL. But evil spirits have driven his parents from their dream home. Joe's models melt, his baseball cannot be caught. He discovers baleful connections between astronauts, dirty laundry, roasted chickens, Nixon, castro and dog pooh. Joe's sunny Southern California becomes a pandaemonium of crappy feelings bowing to one malevolont master: arithmetic. The spirits assume many forms: the hulking scout Gomez, Walt Disney, finally Joe's affable Dad, who becomes a mathematical tyrant. With his best friend, the plucky Fard, and Dr Herbert S. Zim, his naturalist hero, Joe attempts to flee, to find the America he knows to be pure- the country of cartoons. In this brilliant novel, Todd McEwen reminds us that children already have a civilisation complete: ARITHMETIC palpably re-creates the horrendous experience of growing-up, and makes of it a subversive comic classic.