Another one for the reading list

While the world's attention was focused on the death of superstar/superfreak Michael Jackson, Lori and I were experiencing a quintessential evening in Northeast Portland -- a casual sushi dinner, followed by a book reading by a Northwest author at the independent bookstore two doors down from Lori's studio.

And not just any Northwest author.

This was Jim Lynch, a veteran journalist who worked at The Oregonian and other newspapers before making the leap into writing fiction. If you're familiar with Jim's first book, the widely acclaimed "The Highest Tide" -- a beautifully written novel about a 13-year-old beachcomber named Miles O'Malley, set on the shores of Puget Sound -- then you'll be just as eager as I am to dive into his second book, "Border Songs."

Jim is a classic case of good things happening to good people. Evident from his reading last night, he is the same witty and humble guy who has succeeded through a combination of dogged reporting skills and amazing discipline as a writer, one who works and reworks and reworks a sentence until it's just right.

There were six of us current or former Oregonian staffers among the approximately 50 people who crammed into a corner at Broadway Books to hear Jim describe how he got the idea for his newest book (a colleague suggested he might find a good story if he spent some time at the Canadian border), as well as how he writes (in spurts, while listening to Miles and Coltrane).

Even before he read from it, we laughed along with him as he described his trepidation at appearing on Canada's equivalent of "Good Morning, America" to kick off a tour in support of the book. Imagine enduring layers of orange makeup under the bright TV lights and trying to keep your wits about you while a stereotypical blow-dried interviewer -- someone who's wearing even more orange makeup than you -- asks about your new book. It all turned out well, Jim said. He fought off the urge to vomit and the interviewer asked surprisingly good questions.

Anyway, according to a publisher's synopsis, "Border Songs" is about:

An extremely tall dyslexic [who] is pushed away from his family's Washington dairy farm to join the Border Patrol, where he indulges his obsessions with birds and art while occasionally catching smugglers and illegal immigrants on the British Columbian border.

Jim says Brandon Vanderkool, the 6-foot-8 Border Patrol agent, is just one of several quirky characters in the book. If he's as entertaining as Miles, I'm sure I'll be in for a treat.

Jim will be back in the Portland area next month, so I recommend you catch him:

Thursday, July 23 (7:30 pm)
Annie Bloom’s Books
7834 SW Capitol Hwy, Portland

Friday, July 24 (7 pm)
Tigard Public Library, 13500 SW Hall Blvd.

In the meantime, check out Jeff Baker's piece on Jim that appeared in The Oregonian. http://www.oregonlive.com/O/index.ssf/2009/06/northwest_novelist_jim_lynch_p.html