G. Xavier Robillard Comes Back Home

After falling victim to wanderlust and shacking up with Beantown for a couple years, G. Xavier Robillard has decided to come back home to Portland, vowing to never move away from Oregon again.  The rest of the country’s loss is our gain, as Robillard’s special brand of wit, humor, and satire is a welcome re-addition to Portland’s literary community.

On the move back Robillard stopped into 8 indie bookstores in Buffalo, Ann Arbor, Lansing, Chicago(ish), Minneapolis, Fargo, and Missoula, and although he didn’t have any planned events at the stores he intended to “document what makes each one of these indies so special, like whether the poetry section can kick the ass of the self-help section, and if it’s really true that the ghost of Old Man Jenkins haunts the store on the first prime numbered Wednesday of each month.”  He detailed this “Great American Tour d’Store” on his wonderfully entertaining website, in addition to creating a Google Map of the trip.  The last leg of the journey will happen this Thursday (6/18) at 7:30pm at the Powell’s Hawthorne store, and as a special treat to attendees he plans “on doing some live comedy.”

Robillard’s debut novel Captain Freedom: A Superhero’s Quest for Truth, Justice and the Celebrity He So Richly Deserves (Harper Paperbacks 2009), has been hailed as “a truly funny and energetic romp of a social satire” (Christopher Moore), and “[A] gleeful romp through American pop culture,” (Kirkus Reviews).  You can download podcasts of Robillard reading chapters from Captain Freedom on the Powell’s website.