8 Ball Cafe A True Story Author:Lori Carangelo Noah Stone and Tom McGee were both declared child geniuses. Noah and Tom never knew each other, yet their stories are alamrmingly alike. Both survived decades of drug addiction while institutionalized most of their lives in mental hospitals and state prisons, their mental abilities and sense of humor still remarkably intact. Noah's adoptive p... more »arents told him he was part Native American and that they purchased him when he was 3 years old for $350 at the 8 Ball Cafe. Tom's adoptive parents told him he is part Hispanic, Asian and Caucasian and that they found him in foster care when he was age 5. Noah and Tom have lived behind an 8 ball, trapped inside their own brains where children hide, their birthfamilies a vague shadow memory. The tangled web of their lives and the results of their searches for their birth-families is a study on what was and still is wrong with America's foster care, adoption and prison systems.« less