Borderline

[November 22nd, 2006] Borderline (St. Martin's Press, 272 pages, $24), the latest from Portland author Mark Schorr, is filled with more hometown trivia and "I know that place!" moments than a POVA brochure. Unfortunately, it also packs in more laughable "more ____ than a ____"-type statements than a...a... "more gentleman callers than a McDonald's drive-thru window?" Damn, maybe that stuff is harder to write than it looks.

Or, more likely, it's incredibly easy. That's the point, of course. Borderline tags itself a thriller, and in that world, style can be more of a burden than an asset. Very rarely is style "gripping." Artfulness is for the Hawthorne crowd, the "perennial cool and the cool wannabes" Schorr describes in a hilariously outsiderish single-paragraph scene setting of the Southeast Portland neighborhood in his book.

Don't worry, your neighborhood's probably in there, too, whether it's the "gentrified downtown," a.k.a. the Pearl District, or North Portland, portrayed as a quarter-step away from Felony Flats. And, jeez, if you do happen to live in Felony Flats, I'd get your house on the market before Borderline hits the shelves.

Neighborhood clichÉs and lame prose aside, seeing Portland cast as a character in a pulpy thriller is almost worth the cover price. Hell, even WW gets name-dropped—in Schorr's City Hall, the threat of a Rogue of the Week nomination is pretty heavy stuff. The plot's absolutely ridiculous, clumsily centered on Portland's identity crisis between being a nest for hipster imports and a place of goodwill toward all. In Borderline's Portland, the former is progress: Imports bring their California money and screw the natives. That ideal's antithesis is the book's hero, Brian Hanson, a haunted Vietnam vet and altruistic county-employed psychologist, a self-proclaimed "Don Quixote with a couch." Conveniently, he's married to the perfect symbol of municipal progress, a banker who specializes in redevelopment. Homer Williams could be a client. She hobnobs with the feverishly pro-development mayor's office, while he spends his days sympathizing with what she and the rest of the progress team consider to be the city's lowlifes. And it just so happens that one of those lowlifes who happens to have a "special" relationship with City Hall gets whacked. In an impressive feat, Schorr weave a psychotic "sex freak" ex-CIA deputy mayor, a mercenary named Wolf, plenty of disturbingly creative murders and a couple of Eastside prostitutes into the tale...as well as more cheese than a Velveeta factory.