Meet ‘Electric Orange’ author TJ Poortinga
Published 1:30 am Sunday, April 5, 2026
TJ Poortinga presents his new darkly comic novel, “Electric Orange,” at 2 p.m. on Sunday, April 19, at Griffin Bay Bookstore Café.
A runaway psychologist. A rogue publicist. A reluctant student. A dare that shakes the nation. “Electric Orange” is a darkly comic novel about memory, media and the danger of being taken seriously. Part psychological mystery, part alternate history, it’s a portrait of a person — and a nation — that can’t distinguish madness from insight. When Pieter Verboom has a nervous breakdown on national television, the last thing he expects is to become a populist icon. But when his ironic rant is taken literally by America’s fringe, he’s hailed as the architect of a movement he wants nothing to do with. Desperate to disappear, he’s hounded by an unhinged publicist, Ella Walker, who sees disaster as branding gold. Told through the eyes of his loyal student, Santo Vera, “Electric Orange” is a surreal odyssey through a nation that mistakes sarcasm for a blueprint.
Burly bearded, with arms crossed, Poortinga writes psychological fiction laced with mystery, satire and just enough truth to make readers howl. Raised among dairy farmers in an immigrant enclave near Bellingham, he was groomed for the ministry and trained accordingly. Instead of joining the clergy, he taught high school for two years, then became a ghostwriter for a world-famous evangelist before making a dramatic break from the movement. His work is boldly cinematic and unexpectedly tender, pulsing with the energy of a fever dream.
