Porthole
In Joanna Howard’s sardonic novel Porthole, a famed director is forced to seek rest following the death of her star.
Yacht-raised by an uncle who cycled between young women and filmed it all, Helena learned to master classic film techniques and opportunism early on. Now an auteur whose success is as wrapped up in her relationships with her stars as it is with her own vision, Helena is shaken when Corey, her latest leading man, drowns in the pursuit of the perfect scene. Her studio, still invested in her contract, sends her to a mountain retreat for some recuperative therapy. There, between cryptic encounters with other patients, she thinks back on her career and reckons with self-blame, musing “my life seems to have been a series of lost or last resorts.”
Helena fretted little when she had to leave her first stars, Emile and David, behind; they proved replaceable. But Corey’s death prompts her to examine her bloodlessness and flirt with leaving the industry behind. As a fellow resident observes, though, “the real problem is having a career that people think matters. Then someone is always invested in you keeping at it.” Even Helena’s psychiatrist seems more interested in the tabloid details of her past than he is in her redemption.
Helena is a fascinating narrator, both solipsistic and aware of her vices. Her tales fascinate, from the background on each film and her cynical notice of audience responses to the salacious encounters she had with her leading men. Through indulgences like a seance, a dinner in a dining car, and a curious encounter in a tree house, she reshapes her sense of self into something she can live—and work—with again.
A work of seductive cynicism, Porthole is a novel about great sacrifices made in the name of true art.
Reviewed by
Michelle Anne Schingler
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