King Dork, by Frank Portman

A Dorky, Disillusioned Da Vinci Code
Reviewed by Brian Quale
June 27th, 2007

Experience life through the eyes of Tom Henderson: surviving in a high school full of, in his words, “psychotic normal people,” while trying to get his band together, and attempting to decipher cryptic clues he discovers in his deceased father’s stack of old books. Portman’s first novel is a witty, humorous, music-centric, and fun read.

The cover of Frank Portman’s first novel takes the old, classic red cover of The Catcher in the Rye and symbolically replaces Holden’s catcher fantasy title (using the eraser and pen method) with Tom’s self-imposed and self-deprecating nickname: King Dork. This publishing decision would suggest that this Young Adult Novel is simply a modern retelling of Holden Caulfield’s escape from prep. school and wandering around New York for a couple days, but this is far from the case. Portman’s novel, although influenced by The Catcher and referenced throughout (usually with disdain) by Tom, is an original, creative and sophisticated work that makes Salinger’s book seem even more dated than it already is. Tom is the Catcher Cult’s Antichrist but, at the same time, Holden’s postmodern alter ego who has an intriguing story to tell, and who makes a very solid and captivating first effort.

Our narrator Tom is an almost-friendless, fairly disillusioned teenager with severe Nick Hornby a-la High Fidelity tendencies. He is quick to reference his predominantly 70’s music catalog, considers The Who “the greatest band in the world,” and is constantly inspired by his day-to-day interactions to create new conceptual names, identities, and album art for his two member band. For example:

Band Name: Oxford English
Guitar: Moe Bilalabama
Bass and Lollygagging: Sam “the Cat” Hellerman
First Album: What Part of Suck Don’t You Understand?

Public education, in Tom’s world, is having to endure “the monotony of standard, generic High School Hell, which somehow manages to be horrifying and tedious at the same time.” He considers it “the penalty for transgressions yet to be specified,” and based on some of his experiences that he narrates, the transgressions are quite severe. PE is a “little foretaste of our fine prison system” that includes a boxing unit, where the teacher organizes grudge matches between students, and the fights only end when someone bleeds. “Functionally illiterate” vice principals find ways to torment everyone they can, and Mr. Schtuppe’s English class, which Tom describes figuratively as an “educational train wreck in progress,” spends most of the semester on useless assignments like copying a chapter from The Catcher in the Rye, defining all the words with three or more syllables, and then using them in sentences.

In many ways Tom’s world mirrors Holden’s, which is plagued with seemingly clueless adults, backstabbing classmates, out-of-touch teachers, and in general, dare I say it, “phonies.” Tom also exhibits some classic Holden-esque preoccupations and tendencies. For example, he oftentimes compares his own life experiences to TV sit-coms or movies, specifically the teen movie genre, and dissects how what he is describing in “real” life relates to how Hollywood does it. He also describes how he tries to resist dressing with a specific genre and persona in mind, which he finds very easy to categorize at Hillside High. There are the real and fake mods, the fake hippies, the drama hippies, the young sports troglodytes-in-training, the stoners, the stoner stoners, and the psychotic normal people, who are the closest a group comes on campus to pure evil incarnate. For Tom’s own style, he settles for a military surplus jacket, black converse, and clothes that are generally “unaffiliated,” besides T-shirts of rock bands. Sorry, no red hunting hat for Tom.

At times, it seems like King Dork replaces the cliché’s of high school with other, more updated ones that are oftentimes found in the very movies that Tom criticizes. Parts reminded me of the atmosphere created by the exaggerated school scenes from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off intended to remind us of what Ferris is avoiding, where Ben Stein is your econ. teacher who spends twenty minutes taking roll with his monotonous drone, and then unleashes into an unbearable lesson on “Vooodoooooo Econoooooomics.” But maybe this is part of the fun, and maybe I am being naïve about the modern day high school student experience. I am, after all, a high school teacher. Other parts of the novel concerning the mysteries and conspiracies Tom is working to solve turn into a combination of high school detective noir movies like the underappreciated Brick, and drugged-out suburbia movies like the recent Chumscrubber or Thumbsucker (and I assume a slew of other average three-syllable movies that end in –er).

Nevertheless, Tom has a captivating story to tell that happens within the course of a school semester. It is not a story simply of survival, but of reading and piecing together clues found in his deceased father’s stack of counterculture classics that he read in the early 60’s—The Catcher in the Rye, The Seven Storey Mountain, The Doors of Perception, Siddhartha—to name a few. While the wildly successful conspiracy thriller The Da Vinci Code has characters searching for hidden messages that hold clues to understanding Christianity better (from what I’ve been told—I haven’t read the book, or seen the movie with “Amelie” and a mulleted Tom Hanks), Tom Henderson’s more personal hope, which becomes the reader’s as well, is to find closer connections to his father’s past in order to get to know his father better, albeit retroactively. One wonders as you become involved with Toms’ life, including his new experiences with the opposite sex, if he will ever get to the bottom of these mysteries.

Portman has fun with Tom’s narration, which creates a pseudo-reality that is mesmerizing and engrossing. It is a story told in retrospection, much like Salinger does with Holden. We never learn about Tom’s writing abilities (besides the proof of the well-written book itself), but he often shares his regrets with the reader that he did not keep more accurate notes to help him retell his experiences, and he admits that the timeline of his story is “fuzzy.” Like most novels that would fall under the classification of Young Adult Literature, King Dork is also a strong example of the effective use of teenage skaz (first person narration with the characteristics of spoken rather than the written word), much like The Catcher, although Tom’s narration is much more sophisticated, exhibiting his wit and insight, whereas Holden oftentimes comes off as clueless and whiny. As far as the diction of our narrators, Holden’s innocent use of words such as “crummy” and “phony” are replaced by Tom with cringe-worthy adjectives like “gay” and “retarded,” but with effectiveness that does not glorify their usage, but uses them honestly as part of the unfortunate slang lexicon of teenagers (and many an adult).

Do you have to have read The Catcher to enjoy this novel? I don’t think so—it seems like experiencing public education might be enough, but it would help if you has a taste of the phenomenon that Tom refers to as the “Catcher Cult,” which is the worshiping of Salinger’s novel by teachers and students alike. He references a couple parts of the novel that might spoil a first reading, so I would recommend reading The Catcher first if you were planning on it. And, if you happen to be a high school student living in the United States, plan on reading it in school if you have not already, because chances are you will.

Chuck Klosterman (pop culture/80’s metal critic,) whimsically defines the last five to ten years as the “era of predictable disillusionment.” Our self-awareness of how we should feel when, in a way, has gotten to the point where feelings of disillusionment and alienation are now anticipated, and oftentimes prescribed. I think Portman’s novel and narrator offer something that is much needed and refreshingly new to combat this tendency, or at least make it less predictable, while at the same time drawing on our American Lit. tradition. There are enough Holdens and Holden wannabes in this world, and it’s due time for a Tom or two.

King Dork was published by Delacorte Books for Young Readers. Frank Portman, according to the dust jacket, is the singer / songwriter / guitarist for the Bay Area band The Mr. T Experience, which I recall not being cool enough to listen to in high school. He has finished a new novel, possibly titled Andromeda Klein. Check out his website for more information, and check out Patrick’s review of King Dork for another point of view.