Overview

A runaway psychologist. A rogue publicist. A reluctant biographer. A dare that shakes the nation. Electric Orange is a darkly comic novel about memory, media, and the line between brilliance and delusion. Part psychological mystery, part alternate history, it's a portrait of a person and nation that can't tell the difference between psychosis and prophecy. When a social psychologist has a nervous breakdown on national television, the last thing he expects is to become a populist icon. But when his sarcastic rant is taken literally by America's angriest fringes, Pieter Verboom becomes the accidental prophet of a movement he wants nothing to do with. Desperate to disappear, he's hounded by his unhinged publicist, Ella Walker, who sees disaster as branding gold. Told through the eyes of Santo Vera-Verboom's loyal student and reluctant caretaker-Electric Orange unfolds as a darkly comic satire in the form of a psychological mystery. From Washington D.C., to Flagstaff, Venice Beach, Portland, and Seattle, Santo records his mentor's unraveling thoughts as a nation mistakes irony for gospel. For readers of Don DeLillo, Gary Shteyngart, Ottessa Moshfegh, Paul Beatty, and R.F. Kuang, Electric Orange blends psychological depth with biting wit. At once serious and absurd, Electric Orange is written with the clarity of social science, the bite of satire, and the rhythm of a page-turner. In the tradition of 1984, It Can't Happen Here, and The Plot Against America, this novel distills, exposes, and thrills with wit and urgency. Through vivid characters and luminous prose, it draws readers so deeply into its world they scarcely realize they've become part of the thought experiment.

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TJ Poortinga writes psychological fiction laced with mystery, satire, and just enough truth to make you howl. Raised among dairy farmers in an immigrant enclave of Washington State, he was groomed for the clergy and trained accordingly. In college, he was recruited by a network of political activists disguised as a prayer club-one of many experiences that would later fuel his writing. After teaching high school for two years, he ghostwrote for a conservative radio pundit before making a dramatic exit from the movement, complete with existential crisis. His work is darkly funny, unexpectedly tender, and pulses with the energy of a fever dream and the timing of a well-told joke.

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