POISON SCOOTER

King Dork by Frank Portman

"I wrote this song for my band, the Mr. T Experience, back in the mid-nineties (you can hear the electrified rock and roll version on the MTX album The Mr. T Experience... and the Women Who Love Them). While I was gingerly, sheepishly exploring the idea of trying to write a book, and not really knowing where to begin, Krista Marino (who was to become my editor at Delacorte) suggested that I try to turn a song into a novel as a way of getting started. I can't remember why I settled on "King Dork" as the song to "novelize," but I started thinking about the narrator/character of this song and after quite a bit of staring at a blank Word document and banging my head against the bar I eventually started typing. I didn't tell anyone at the time, but for months the file entitled "King Dork_(novel)_ms" had only the words "there's no way I can write a whole book, absolutely no way, who am I kidding?" on it. The fact that this did turn into a sort of novel in the end continues to mystify me."

Frank Portman, frontman for Mr. T Experience, has created not so much a "sort of" novel, but a very good exploration of teenage angst targeted towards the young adult book market. Now when I heard that Frank was writing a book I was very skeptical (why do musicians always think they can do something besides being in a band?). When I heard the words young adult novel, I thought this could be a trainwreck. Thankfully Frank went the route of Perks of Being A Wallflower instead of the Judy Blume milieu.

Our hero is high school sophomore Tom "Chi-Mo" Henderson, a quietly tormented, picked upon dork who boasts his large vocabulary and dreams up band name after band name while sleep walking his way through school. Best friend Sam and Tom throughout the roughly 350 page story toil with getting a band afloat, hooking up with girls and ultimately working to unlock the mystery surrounding Tom's father who died mysteriously when Tom was just 8 years old.

What I like about the book, besides the high school theme and the fact that Frank wrote it and Frank rocked my ass through college, was that it was a quick read, funny at times and very honest. Although the book appears to be set in the present day, the experience of Tom is universal to my high school life in the mid-80's. Tragically the book managed to bring back some memories I had chosen to forget, but I think having something to relate to made the book more appealing to me overall.

Sidenote: King Dork was the second book I've gotten from the Free Library since I re-joined 3 weeks ago. What a concept the Free Library is; they have books you can read FOR FREE!! Anyway, reading is fun and reading for free is like whipped cream on the top. Pick up a book!

posted by Scooter @ 6:12 AM