King Dork

The clever debut novel by the founder of the punk-pop band Mr. T Experience.
In his two years of high school, Tom Henderson (a.k.a. Chi-Mo, the nickname lovingly bestowed on him by fellow classmates when a vocational test turned up his potential aptitude for priesthood and thus his potential to become a child molester) has spent most of his time maintaining an ever-changing imaginary band (replete with imaginary names, album covers, lyrics and lineups) and thinking about girls he will never make out with.

He has also come to the conclusion that, like most of high school “academics,” the Catcher in the Rye is highly overrated — that is, until he discovers his late father’s copy with its cryptic handwritten notes. The scrawling leads him into a web of clues that could explain a lot about his father and the odd circumstances of his death. Meanwhile, Tom has other mysteries to solve, like the reason his one friend Sam Hellerman is suddenly hanging out with the drama kids and the real identity of a pseudo-mod girl named Fiona who he meets at a party but who may or may not really exist. This clever debut novel by the founder of the punk-pop band Mr. T Experience captures all the ridiculousness and pain of the high school experience when hot babes, working amps and the easy certitude of “normal” people are just out of reach.