Frank Portman has a thing for names. In his first released book, the delightful “King Dork”, the protagonist is a teen named Tom Henderson, although I don’t think he is called this even once in the whole book. Tom’s one-of-a-kind personality coupled with a hellish and hostile day-to-day experience known as “high school” afford him many a creative moniker. A couple of which are: Hender-fag, Chi-Mo, and Sheepie (among numerous others).
Another sweet running joke in “KD” is the continual re-naming of Hender-mo’s band, based on either something related to his current situation, or perhaps from nothing more than a vivid imagination and sense of humor on Portman and Henderson’s part. A couple of these gems include: “The Underpants Machine, The Stoned Marmadukes, Oxford English, and Balls Deep.”
I read KD abot a year ago, and recall it being a rather simple, enjoyable read with a sharp wit. There was some kind of blurb on the book about Portman’s next book, entitled “Andromeda Klein” and even a few pages of the beginning of it in the back of KD. I remember reading the sample, but not getting any concrete idea on what it would be like. I read “Andromeda Klein” recently, and it is like KD, except instead of having a high school-loser-punk-rock-mystery theme, It has a high school-loser-occultist-mystery theme, and if you haven’t already guessed, it’s about a girl named Andromeda Klein.
The first thing that comes to mind about the book is how very dense it is on the prominent subject matter of the occult. Andromeda surrounds herself with old and musty books written by the likes of Aleister Crowley and A.E. Waite. AK’s knowledge of tons of kinds of spells (of which I’ve already forgotten all of the names) really hits you in the face for the first quarter (or so) of the book. You can tell Portman did extensive research for this book, and he shows it. It’s a little overwhelming, but for the most part, remembering everything isn’t necessary.
When you couple the deluge of mystic names and rituals and books and spells (etc) with Portman’s humor and seemingly endless plays on words, it gets rather fun.
AK gets her fair share of alternate names, such as Man-dromeda and No-ass, but another lovely little play-on-words device is that AK can’t hear so well. And it leads to instances of people saying things like “bagel worm agony” (naked girl magazine), and her enemies calling her a “toe-ass butter sucking fish” ( fairly obvious). Atop all of this, there is AAK or “alternate Andromeda Klein”, better known as AK’s more confident and sarcastic inner monologue, which later becomes a full fledged character named “Huggy” (I think). And then there are the dreams, self induced and otherwise.
As complex as minor details in the story are, the major elements stay rather simple. AK is a misunderstood girl who is (very) into her own unique interests, and she’s trying to figure out reasons for things happening to her by utilizing those interests (tarot cards and various other mystical means). And she must attempt all this amongst a mom who is a chronic barger, an absent-for-no-clear-reason-ex?-boyfriend, a friend that continuously tries to set her up on dates, an evil book-abducting organization, a deceased best friend’s psychotic mom, and numerous other perilous entities and situations.
I read another review that said the book takes hold after the initial quarter or so. I agree with this. With the mystic info avalanche safely behind you, you might well become riveted by this slickly-written YA high school occult mystery.
4/5 - Nearly classic!
