Valet Reader

King Dork by Frank Portman

Before I even knew of Frank Portman I had this book on my reading list. If you’ve been following my blog you’ll know that he has been instrumental (ha, play on words) in three of my posts to date. But like I said, wanting to read King Dork since before I started the blog, I had no idea who he was. So… why then was this book on my list? Well, it all goes back to growing up, when my brother or I would proclaim ourselves as “king” when signing off on e-mails or what have you. You know, sibling rivalry, to prove who was more badass. I always won of course but that’s besides the point. Anyways, I kind of thought this book would be fun to read and then I could call my brother “king dork” and actually have a reference.

Alas, I don’t think I can equate the two since I kind of think “king dork” is the man (sorry Josh, you know I’m just playing and don’t worry Lor, you’re day will come). I really enjoyed Frank’s first novel, and I think I actually liked more than I did Andromeda Klein, why, because its an easier story to relate to, for me anyways.

King Dork is an excellent portrayal of the way highschool was for so many of us. We all may not have been the Tom Henderson (aka King Dork) character or his buddy Sam Hellerman but there are plenty of characters in the story whom you can recognize from your days in school, if not yourself.  Tom and Sam’s aspirations are to start a band (for which, through the course of the novel, together they come up with and change the name of the band 25 times), avoid bullies and find a special lady while they are in school.  Frank Portman devises some of the most original means of accomplishing these goals such as having Tom carry around copies of Guns & Ammo Magazine to prevent would be bullies from picking on him. I’m pretty sure had I tried such a maneuver I would have been sent to Mr. Hulsey and had to do manual labor as punishment, but it would have been worth it (although I think I would have picked a more risque magazine, for those of you who were on the “Nagano” trip, you know what I’m talking about) .

The story, or the plot, for the most part revolves around an old copy of The Catcher in the Rye that Tom finds amongst stacks of his deceased father’s belongings in the attic. From there, Tom starts his journey of attempting to solve several mysteries from the notes his father wrote in the book, to learn more about his father and his experience reading the novel. The culmination at the end of all the plot lines is very amusing (I thought) and thankfully you can smile at that point when thinking about Tom.

With this book you can relive some of those days that we can never have back. For those of you who are young enough to be in highschool you can take away a humorous story that may look like it was set on the very grounds of your school.

I’ve been following Mr. Portman on twitter for some time now and at several points he has mentioned that there may be a King Dork movie in the works. Keep your eyes peeled. So long as it’s not Michael Cera (I like him, but give someone else a shot) it will be a sure hit.