Panorama City

With its blend of fool's wisdom and deeply felt humanity, Panorama City is heir to Marilynne Robinson's Gilead and Steve Martin's The Jerk.¿ From his deathbed*, twenty-eight-year-old Oppen Porter-an openhearted, bicycle-riding, binocular-toting, self-described “slow absorber”-unspools into a cassette recorder his tale of self-determination, from “village idiot” to “man of the world,” for the benefit of his unborn son.¿ Told in an astonishingly charming and wise voice, Oppen's account trace...