The Portland “idea” only entered the popular imagination in recent years, mainly thanks to the comedy TV show Portlandia, as Jon Raymond recently wrote. But this city, known as a paradise for vegans, lovers of iced lattes (yes, flat white fever hasn’t conquered America yet), bearded men, worshipers of fixed-gear bikes, and every other hipster stereotype that you want to summon, it’s more interesting and surprising than this suggests.
Whether you’re planning a trip to this Pacific Northwest city or want to learn more about it through its literature, you’re in for a treat thanks to a collective brainstorm we did with our readers. here are the best options. missing your favourite? add it in the comments.
You are reading: Books about portland oregon
1. lean on pete de willy vlautin (2010)
willy vlautin has published four novels, all recommended as “excellent” portland reads by mikeollier, and all praised as portraits of bleak contemporary america. Her third book, Lean on Pete, tells the story of a teenager who lives on a city racetrack. her latest, the free (2014), was praised in a guardian review:
“It’s love, in all-American extra-large portions, too salty, that makes free original and appealing. […] freddie and particularly pauline triumphantly emerge from their piles of purchases and wads of cash as convincing, heroic people, and provide ample shoulders on which to peek vlautin’s bloody vision of America.”
Not all of his work is strictly Portland, but “many of the stories focus on the Pacific Northwest and a broader theme of social marginalization in the New West,” added tproland. Vlautin wears a second hat as the frontman for the alt-country band Richmond Fontaine, which Mikeollier pointed us to. many of his lyrics also touch on the city and the region. example:
in quotes from the book:
I strayed and strayed, ended up in wyoming/got so broke I sold my car.
look, here’s a tip. what you do is think about the life you want, you think about it in your head. make it a place where you want to be: a ranch, a beach house, a penthouse on top of a skyscraper. It doesn’t matter what it is, but a place where you can hide. when the going gets tough, go there. – of motel life
2. Runaways and Refugees: A Walk Through Portland, Oregon by Chuck Palahniuk (2003)
chuck palahniuk is not for everyone, or for every stomach, I should say. But if you’re a fan of the fight club author and Portland native, you can’t miss his kind of travel guide. dan glaister wrote about the guardian:
Fugitives and Refugees is the most picturesque thing, a travel book, but it is not exactly the book its publishers expected. Instead, it’s a series of essays, postcards, and musings about the underbelly of his hometown of Portland. yet beneath the profanity and glitter of her new book […] is a quiet, spiritual palahniuk struggling to get out. this side also struggles in conversation, sometimes in the most unexpected ways.
Underground tunnels, strange customs, a self-cleaning house, sex clubs, local vocabulary, anecdotes, and lots of weird facts, like where palahniuk’s tonsils currently rest, await you. recommended by rustybeancake and smudger1.
in quotes from the book:
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katherine’s theory is that everyone looking to make a new life migrates west, across america to the pacific ocean. once there, the cheapest city they can live in is portland. this gives us the wackiest of wackos. The misfits among the misfits. “We just accumulate more and more weird people,” she says. ‘all we are are fugitives and refugees’.
3. Jumptown: The Golden Years of Portland Jazz, 1942-1957 by Robert Dietsche (2005)
rdb1 pointed us to this non-fictional mix of politics, music, and history, explaining the golden decade of music that followed WWII, when jazz thrived in oregon city: “it’s not all So evocative, but if I have an interest in jazz, portland, and black removal (aka urban renewal), I recommend it.”
in quotes from the book:
the center of action was williams avenue, an entertainment strip lined with hot spots where jazz could be found 24 hours a day. what is now the neighborhood of roses used to have many other names. Any cabbie worth his salt would have known that Black Broadway, The Other Side, Color Town all meant the same thing: The Avenue, that is, Williams Avenue. fifty years ago, you could stand in the middle of the parkway (where the blazers play basketball today) and look for williams past the chili parlors, past the barbecues, past the hair salons, all the way to broadway, and see hundreds of people dressed as if they were going to a fashion show. It could be four in the morning. it did not matter; this was one of those “streets that never sleep”.
4. bad night walt curtis (1977)
“no mention of walt curtis? without his bad night, you may never have heard of gus van sant,” said marzek. This Portland story might be well known for the filmmaker’s (another famous Portlander, by the way) adaptation, which pretty much launched the director’s career, but Curtis’s autobiographical novel is a gripping depiction of the city in the ’70s. In it, Curtis, considered the city’s street poet and often associated with Beat authors, explained his relationships with Latino teenagers in the city’s small Mexico neighborhood. alonk said:
Bad Night, also one of Van Sant’s earliest films, well captures 1970s portland, before slum dwellers were evicted and the area became “the pearl” and shelters for homeless people and cheap hotels turned into shops selling expensive junk. As a native of Jerusalem and a resident of Portland for many years (with stays in London, Eugene, Davis and Berkeley) there is much to recommend the city, the mountains, the trees and many progressive minded people.
in quotes from the book:
I don’t want to interfere in their lives. a gringo like me has an easy life. a privileged life. And just because I see someone hot like Johnny doesn’t mean I should be able to have him or buy him or whatever, just because he’s hungry and he’s on the street. desperate handsome that wasn’t exactly my intention, but it could be misunderstood that way.
5. the girl who fell from the sky by heidi w durrow (2010)
In this novel, a mixed-race girl from Chicago is forced to move to Portland after experiencing a family tragedy, with her African American grandmother as her guardian and a majority black neighborhood as her new home. Reflecting Durrow’s own experiences of displacement and race, it was reviewed in the New York Times: “It is when she addresses questions of identity and community in subtle, roundabout ways that the girl who fell from the sky can really fly,” wrote the reviewer. recommended by bevpdx.
in quotes from the book:
a woman made of parts is a dangerous thing. you never know when she’ll throw away a piece you might need.
Mathematics can explain why there is a one in four chance that he has blue eyes. but it doesn’t explain why me.
6. wild wood by colin meloy and carson ellis (2011)
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scott duncan highly recommended this children’s book by colin meloy, the decemberists’ singer-songwriter, and artist carson ellis, his partner:
fantastic books for older children (my daughter is 12 and we read them aloud). Wildwood is a magical land across the river from Portland that seems stuck in the 19th century, with a little extra magic. On one level, Meloy is writing a gentle satire of bearded hipsters. but on most levels, wildwood is a great adventure story starring cool kids who save the world.
an american narnia, as reviewed by the keeper of patrick ness.
in quotes from the book:
my dear prue, we are the heirs of a wonderful world, a beautiful world, full of life and mystery, goodness and pain. but equally we are children of an indifferent universe. we break our hearts imposing our moral order on what is, by nature, a vast web of chaos. it is a useless task.
7. shot in the heart by mikal gilmore (1995)
arnold ward recommended this memoir written by rolling stone journalist mikal gilmore, describing it as a “heartbreaking story of growing up in a dysfunctional portland family, which included his notorious brother gary gilmore, whose insistence on being executed by a firing squad revived death.” penalty in america”. In fact, Gary Gilmore was the murderer depicted in the Post Hangman’s song, who campaigned for his own death. But he wasn’t the only member of a surprisingly dysfunctional family.
in quotes from the book:
That attitude of smugness prevailed in portland for generations, keeping the place isolated and insular. Consequently, Portland was largely unprepared for the population influx.
8. night dogs by kent anderson (1996)
This list would not be complete with a crime story, and the novel night dogs, recommended by ymgmat18, is a “long, fiercely authentic and deeply disturbing novel about police officers acting as an ‘occupying army’ in the neighborhoods America’s fringes”. ,” in Portland’s high-crime North Precinct, according to the Los Angeles Times.
in quotes from the book:
no one has rights unless they have a machine gun.
9. i loved you more by tom spanbauer (2014)
spanbauer is one of those essential literary figures of portland, the heart of the city’s literary world, according to many local authors. (check his conversation with palahniuk in believer magazine). This latest novel presents the city as the setting, along with New York City, of a decade-spanning love triangle that includes college liaisons, literary conversations, confused men. friendships and reflections on age. was recommended by johnmcrae.
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extra notes and literary facts
- it is worth mentioning the children’s fiction of beverly cleary (creator of characters like ramona quimby) which, as countzero1 pointed out, is the entrance of many readers to the city. Here’s a chat Atlantic had with her four years ago (when she was 95!), a New York Times profile on her timeless appeal, and an essay about her published in the Oregon Quarterly.
- as countzero1 pointed out (told him about it by a couple, when he visited in 1982), the infamous vesuvio cafe in san francisco, which is right across from the city lights bookstore (both of beat generation fame ), has a scribble on the edge of the entrance that reads, “we can’t wait to get away from portland oregon.” you can read more about this, and about the history of the place, here and here.
- For football/soccer nerds, Michael Orr’s Portland Sports History sounds like a great read. learn more in brenton’s comment.
- and one final anecdote: gary snyder, philip whallen and lew welch were roommates at reed college in town. “one of the most significant student pads in the history of American poetry, right?” asked billymills – rightly so, in our opinion.