Reviews: (by author)

Portman, Frank. King Dork. New York : Delacorte Press, 2006.

It is hard to describe the inner workings of a dork's mind. That is why it is hard to describe this book . King Dork is one long stream of consciousness in the mind of Thomas Henderson, a.k.a King Dork. Tom Henderson spends the majority of his school life attempting to avoid torment, ridicule and being thrown into lockers by his peers. Even the assistant principal mocks him. His home life is no welcome relief . His father died six years earlier, leaving him a distant mother and an over-enthusiastic step- father. Tom survives by staying in his head.

Frank Portman, a punk band leader turned novelist, gives us the feeling we are inside Tom's body looking out as he experiences life. Tom doesn't talk much, but the awkward interactions he does have are nutty comedic gems. Most of Tom's conversations are with his best friend, Sam Hellerman, and center around their other main obsession besides girls-- their band. Even those conversations get cut short, as Sam often falls into a Vicodin stupor, his coping mechanism for the school torture and a flimsy family life.

Like most teenagers, Tom thinks all adults are embarrassingly dumb, with the exception of his dead father who he is still trying to get to know by reading a collection of books and notes his father left behind.

Two mysteries shake up Tom's world: A note that he finds in his father's old copy of The Catcher in the Rye, which could be the key to unraveling the enigmatic circumstances that surround his death, and finding the mystery girl he shared his first sexual encounter with in a dark room at a party.

He can't get any answers about his father from his mother who sits around drinking, pill popping and crying all the time. All the sub-characters are multi-layered and fun to love or hate. He describes his mother: "Basically, she is a traditional suburban mom with a thin veneer of yesterday's counterculture not too securely fastened to the outside." The one guy who actually is in Tom's corner is the one he loves to make fun of the most: his step dad, Little Big Tom, a mix between Ozzie Nelson and Jerry Garcia.

The plot rolls along slowly, veering often to dwell in Tom's philosophical and musical musings. Like many streams of consciousnesses some of it is brilliant and endlessly funny, while other parts are over-indulgent and boring.

To survive his unstable world, Tom has a cynicism that is bitingly funny. Tom describes a scene where the so-called "normal" kids attack them to steal Sam's hat: "We were walking past a group of jabbering half human/half beast student replicants when a smaller subgroup of what seemed like angry orangutan people broke away and started running toward us, shrieking in that way they have: oof, oof, oof!" Sometimes Tom's defense mechanism of sarcasm worked too well, and I no longer felt sorry for him.

Young readers will get quite the culture lesson hearing about Timothy Leary, Rosemary's Baby and over a page explaining why seventies Bubblegum music is so genius. And just in case all the music, literature and culture references are too much to keep up with, Portman supplies a glossary that lists "Boomers: the Most Annoying Generation," and "Brighton Rock: The best book ever written"

Ending with the winter break of Tom's sophomore year, Tom learns some important things: being in a band definitely gets you chicks, (the sexual content is pretty candid) and it is not so important how his dad died, but that through this experience he feels closer to him.

King Dork has quickly gained a following with both teen and adult readers. With all the past culture references, it seems as if a Generation X reader would enjoy it more, but the alienation Tom feels is universal. It is nice to have a young adult book geared more for the male reader in an otherwise more female dominated genre. But the more savvy female reader should enjoy its quirkiness and Tom's endearing soft side. Although all the cast of high school characters are recognizable, not one person appeared clichéd. And for readers who are sad to have the book end, there's more-- a King Dork sound track, composed by Portman, and a website where you can create your own band's album cover and a band name generator.

It turns out that this dork is not such a dork after all.

 

Shelley Moreno, December 2006

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