Panorama City

Oppen Porter, a self-described “slow absorber,” thinks hes dying. He's not, but from his hospital bed he unspools his tale of self-determination into a cassette recorder for the benefit of his unborn son. Written in a wise and “refreshingly sincere” voice (Flavorwire), Panorama City traces forty days and nights navigating the fast-food joints, storefront churches, and home-office psychologists of the San Fernando Valley. Throughout, tugged in competing directions by people who think they know what is best for him, Oppen strives to carve out his own path and become a man of the world. Disarmingly funny and surreptitiously moving, Panorama City is a novel “worth cheering for, taking a route rare in serious contemporary fiction: finding a way to a happy ending” (Cleveland Plain Dealer).

"Clever and wisely funny." —Ellissa Schappell, Vanity Fair

"A gift . . . An astonishing narrative that offers the pleasures of irony without the sting . . . Nowhere in [Oppen's] purview is there blame or regret. He travels from innocence to experience without falling into disillusionment. The great triumph of the book is that Oppen matures without spoiling. He comes to affirm the integrity of his innocence, which is its own wisdom." —Amy Parker, Los Angeles Review of Books

"A crisp comic novel...This isn't, by heritage, a California book....Panorama City's spent quality, its ruminative room, recalls some of the best of the mid-century South, New Orleans specifically, The Moviegoer and A Confederacy of Dunces, particularly. Those books never mistook time spent seeing through a cracked idea for a loss of urgency. Their absurdism was a claim on the page, a strong-arm of a story from the concluders...Wilson's [novel] is a trot and a treat." —Theo Schell-Lambert, San Francisco Chronicle

"In his second novel, Antoine Wilson brings much comedic grace and a sure feel for Southern California. In spots, Panorama City is laugh-aloud funny, building toward a slapstick climax that the Marx Brothers might have relished . . . Wilson has said his aphoristic, funny novel is meant to make a case for direct observation over ideology. It does. It is also worth cheering for taking a route rare in serious contemporary fiction: finding a way to a happy ending." —Cleveland Plain Dealer

"As enjoyable a comic novel as I have read all year, a coming of age story that vividly captures the modern world through innocent eyes." —Largehearted Boy

"Idiosyncratic...Charming...Indelible." —Josh Mak, Flavorwire

"Oppen Porter is an American original, an innocent who believes he's bursting with wisdom. The funniest thing is that, despite himself, he actually is. Though it takes place in down-at-heel Panorama City with its crappy burger franchises and abandoned shopping carts, The World According to Oppen is full of wonders and mysteries." —Stewart O'Nan

"This funny and wise novel reminds one that the best fiction often treads the subtle line between tragedy and comedy. With ears keenly tuned to the music of language, and a limpid mind slyly hidden behind a persistent soliloquist, Antoine Wilson has written an intricate novel that makes us laugh and cry. " —Yiyun Li, author of Gold Boy, Emerald Girl

"God bless Oppen Porter! His innocence and lack of pretense are our good fortune and our delight. Under his observation, our follies and schemes and manias go up in the brightest, funniest, heartrending flames. This is precisely (and artfully) because he does not judge them. Panorama City is charming and absurd, very funny and, best of all, humane through and through." —Paul Harding, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Tinkers

"This is a book you will hold in your head all day long, a book you will look forward to when you get home from work, a book you will still be savoring as you drift into sleep. Panorama City is often very funny. It is filled with joy and wonder, and a sort of goodness you had stopped believing might be even possible. Antoine Wilson's sentences are like diamond necklaces but his greatest treasure is his human heart." —Peter Carey

"Antoine Wilson draws us in to the weird, wonderful world of Oppen Porter, whose advice and lessons are jarringly original, funny, and moving." —Steve Hely, author of How I Became a Famous Novelist, Winner of the Thurber Award

"Wilson's Panorama City is a candid and perceptive exploration of how families connect and how society's most popular methods of advancement may not always be the most beneficial. Oppen is an excellent judge of character, and Wilson's ability to sketch out such an ideal narrator should be commended. Readers who enjoy Mark Haddon and Greg Olear will appreciate Wilson's authorial voice, which blends Oppen's good-natured naïveté and humorous asides with incisive cynicism. A funny, heartfelt, and genuine novel." —Booklist

"Wilson's second novel (after Interloper) is fresh and flawlessly crafted as well as charmingly genuine. Oppen Porter is almost 30, a guileless man who lives in a small central California town with his reclusive father in a house overtaken by nature....Oppen experiments with various roles-dedicated worker, student of religion, thinker-eventually finding his place in the world, framing a classic coming-of-age story in an unexpected way." —STARRED Publishers Weekly

A New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice

 

A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of 2012   "Antoine Wilson's delightful Panorama City is a transcript of 10 tapes recorded over one long night in the hospital by Oppen Porter, a 28-year-old, 66" ‘slow absorber who fears he won't live until morning, laying out for his unborn son an account of his life . . . With very dry wit, a cockeyed tolerance for human foibles and a goofy idealism, Oppen painstakingly records his journey, helped along the way by bus drivers, a pretty police officer, a collector of abandoned shopping carts, and Carmen, the Mexican prostitute who's carrying his child. Long before the last tape begins, readers will have grown to love Wilson's earnest, well-meaning protagonist, who just wants to learn what it means to be a man of the world." — Shelf Awareness   "Charming and oddball . . . A bracingly humane story whose narrators wisdom and forbearance make you see the world afresh . . . A delightful performance, a winning and warm story whose success can be credited to Wilsons canny and often piercing use of Oppens sensibility . . . Like Oppen, the reader concludes his story feeling something akin to joy." — Adam Ross, New York Times Book Review   "Clever and wisely funny." — Ellissa Schappell, Vanity Fair   "In his second novel, Antoine Wilson brings much comedic grace and a sure feel for Southern California. In spots, Panorama City is laugh-aloud funny, building toward a slapstick climax that the Marx Brothers might have relished . . . [Panorama City is] worth cheering for taking a route rare in serious contemporary fiction: finding a way to a happy ending." — Cleveland Plain Dealer   "A gift . . . An astonishing narrative that offers the pleasures of irony without the sting . . . Nowhere in [Oppens] purview is there blame or regret. He travels from innocence to experience without falling into disillusionment. The great triumph of the book is that Oppen matures without spoiling. He comes to affirm the integrity of his innocence, which is its own wisdom." — Los Angeles Review of Books   "A crisp comic novel . . . Recalls some of the best of the mid-century South, New Orleans specifically, The Moviegoer and A Confederacy of Dunces particularly. Those books never mistook time spent seeing through a cracked idea for a loss of urgency . . . Wilsons [novel] is a trot and a treat." — San Francisco Chronicle   "As enjoyable a comic novel as I have read all year, a coming-of-age story that vividly captures the modern world through innocent eyes." — Largehearted Boy   "Idiosyncratic . . . Charming . . . Indelible." — Flavorwire   "Fresh and flawlessly crafted as well as charmingly genuine . . . Untouched by cynicism, Oppens interpretation of the world around him evokes both the sublime and the ridiculous . . . framing a classic coming-of-age story in an unexpected way." — Publishers Weekly (starred review)   "Candid and perceptive . . . Readers who enjoyed Mark Haddon and Greg Olear will appreciate Wilsons authorial voice . . . A funny, heartfelt, and genuine novel." — Booklist   "This is a book you will hold in your head all day long, a book you will look forward to when you get home from work, a book you will still be savoring as you drift into sleep. Panorama City is often very funny. It is filled with joy and wonder, and a sort of goodness you had stopped believing might be even possible. Antoine Wilsons sentences are like diamond necklaces but his greatest treasure is his human heart." — Peter Carey, author of Parrot and Olivier in America   "God bless Oppen Porter! His innocence and lack of pretense are our good fortune and our delight. Under his observation, our follies and schemes and manias go up in the brightest, funniest, heart-rending flames. This is precisely (and artfully) because he does not judge them. Panorama City is charming, absurd, very funny, and best of all, humane through and through." — Paul Harding, author of Tinkers

"This funny and wise novel reminds us that the best fiction often treads the subtle line between tragedy and comedy. With ears keenly tuned to the music of language, and a limpid mind slyly hidden behind a persistent soliloquist, Antoine Wilson has written an intricate novel that makes us laugh and cry." — Yiyun Li, author of Gold Boy, Emerald Girl

Heir to A Confederacy of Dunces and Being There, Panorama City is a wildly entertaining and surreptitiously moving novel about a self-described "slow absorber" named Oppen Porter, who records everything he thinks his unborn son will find useful in becoming a man of the world. 

Oppen Porter thinks hes dying. (Hes not.)

From his hospital bed, with tape recorder in hand, he unspools his tale for the benefit of his unborn son, the tale of his forty-day journey from innocence to experience, from self-described “slow absorber” to man of the world.

This is his “astonishing,”* “laugh-aloud funny,”** “crisp,”*** “delightful,”**** “indelible”***** story.

*Los Angeles Review of Books

**Cleveland Plain Dealer

***San Francisco Chronicle

****Shelf Awareness

*****Flavorwire

Antoine Wilson is the author of the novel The Interloper