A Mild Form of Madness

Narrated by Tim McIlrath, the legendary front man and voice of the Chicago punk rock band, Rise Against, A Mild Form of Madness is a raw Chicago odyssey. This is not a quiet book. It's written in a full-throttle voice—part street philosophy part love letter to Chicago, part confession.

Through strides strode through bustling or desolate streets, bike rides along frozen water, chance conversations with strangers and nights where music turns a crowd into something holy, the narrator wrestles with work, meaning, addiction, loyalty and loss.

If you've ever pondered the existential gantlet of what you would do if there were no tomorrows, this one will hit. Voice-driven, profane, and painfully honest, it's a book about time running out, truth catching up, and the unexpected, beautiful moments that make you want to keep going anyway. Chicago doesn't care how you feel—it keeps moving—wind off the lake, steel heat in the dark, trains screaming past, humans hustling, dreaming, thriving, breaking—surviving.

AMFOM follows a restless narrator and countless characters on the margins over three days of a charging poetic prose in the harsh winter of 2008.

Drifting through jobs that feel like slow death, listening hard to strangers, friends, and his own mind as it tries to outrun fear, regret, and the brutal math of time. It's funny, tender, vengeful and furious.

A search for love, knowledge, sanity and freedom blended between family friends and outcasts.

AMFOM is, above all else, a human story: what it costs to stay honest, what it costs to stall, and what it means to love something before it's gone.

If it fails to change you—it's about you.

To celebrate this audiobook release, a limited # of 10,200 prints are now available at the Walton Street Publishing Amazon store, along with 1000, hand-numbered and signed, 11/17 prints of the cover art. The availability of additional prints/art, whence extinguished, is not expected at this time.