I’ve been thinking about doing some best-of-the-year posts this week, and trying to come up with a reasonable list of best books. Frank Portman’s piss-take on Catcher in the Rye, the much-praised-by-Bookslut King Dork is one of the books that might well figure in a “best books of 206” post, which made me realize that I never did get around to booklogging it.
So, King Dork. It’s very up-front about being a response to The Catcher in the Rye, what with the big explanation of “The Catcher Cult” starting on page ten, and the fact that the plot is set in motion by the narrator’s discovery of cryptic notes in his late father’s copy of Salinger’s classic. It’s also a kind of attempt at writing a post-punk Catcher, so the whole thing is very meta. Or something.
King Dork is the story of Thomas “Chi-Mo” Henderson, one of the least popular students at Hillmont High. He and his only friend, Sam Hellerman spend their days planning the career of their band (the band name and album titles change almost daily, but all they need is a drummer and they’re ready to go), and trying to avoid the worst indignities inflicted on them by the school system. It’s all very typical high school loser stuff, until two things change: Tom has an encounter with a girl at a party, and he loses his copy of Catcher in the Rye. When he digs his father’s copy out of a box of books in the basement, he finds some cryptic marginalia that set him off on a quest. Well, a second quest, paralleling the search for the mysterious Fiona.
Tom narrates his own story, and unlike many classic YA protagonists who seem to have grown up in some sort of pop-culture sensory deprivation chamber, he’s well aware of his place in the cultural canon:
In this movie, Kyrsten Blakeney somehow discovers my hidden depths, decides she likes my eyes, smells my pheremones, and goes crazy for my body. She decides to risk everything and shock God and country by becoming the girlfriend of a nameless sad-sack dork like me. Society is aghast. Parents and teacher wonder where they went wrong. The president declares martial law. Meanwhile, Kyrsten and I make out in the gym at the homecoming dance while everyone stands around in a shocked, silent circle. Then she gets up on the stage and delivers this great speech to the student body, condemning them for their superficiality, insensitivity, and racism (because maybe in the movie I could be black or Filipino or Native American and handicapped, too). And when she’s finished, after a panoramic shot of the stunned, silent crowd, one person starts to clap slowly. Soon another starts to clap. Before long, they’re all clapping. They raise me up on their shoulder and ride me around the gymnasium shouting “Chi-Mo! Chi-Mo! Chi-Mo!” just like they used to in junior high, except now they mean it in a positive sense. And my dad comes back from the dead and smiles at me from the bleachers and kisses my mom on the cheek. And as the throng hands me a check for a hundred thousand dollars and carries me out the door to my brand-new car, you hear the voice of my back-from-the-dead father saying, “I’m proud of you, boy….” Kyrsten and I start driving off to Vegas to get married. She gives me a blow job on the highway under the steering wheel, and kisses me on the mouth and says, “Chi-Mo, you better get used to this, because from now on you’re stuck with me….”
Okay, I got a little carried away there. Take it up to right after the speech to the student body, and change me back into a white, suburban, typically abled, clever, if angry, yet somehow almost lovable mixed-up kind of weird guy. Slightly more believable.
That’s a long quote, I know, but it gives you a solid idea of the book. If you’re allergic to self-aware hipster narration, stay far away from this book. If you like your YA books to be PG-rated, stay far away from this book. If you like conventionally upliting stories, stay far away from this book.
But if you like that excerpt, this is a terrific book. The narrative voice is strong and unique, the portrayal of life in the lower reaches of the high-school social order is somewhat exaggerated but very sharp and funny, and Tom’s various nemeses (slightly addled but well-meaning parents, an assistant principal who’s a little off, and a collection of bullies) are deftly drawn. The plot takes a couple of lurid turns, but they’re described with a nice mix of dork bravado and vulnerability that carries you through even the most implausible bits.
If you tilt your head and squint, it’s even a little uplifting. Not in the usual teen-movie sense (unless the movies is Heathers, in which case, maybe), but somewhere in the twisty plot and tales of high school brutality, you can find a story about the transformative power of rock and roll. Or at least, of saying you’re in a band, which is almost the same thing.
It’s not a book for everyone, that’s for sure, but if you like the sort of thing you get from the excerpt above, it’s one of the best books of the year.