Rating: 
Summary: Descent Into Madness
Review:
Regardless of your sanity, Fugitives and Refugees is a snapshot of Portland life, life gone insane, and for good reason. Portland has a distinct history, chock full of pirates, prostitutes, and other ne'er-do-wells, setting it apart from most of mainline America. It's a cheap place to live, according to Chuck, and hordes of Artists and other extremists have given themselves over to the charms of Portland's insanity. "This gives us the most cracked of the crackpots. The misfits among misfits." And Chuck Palahniuk calls it home. His crowned jewel of western America. His muse and creative energy. A place where everyone lives three lives, with no regrets or inhibitions. I am sane by comparison I've said. And its good to know there are crazier places than California.
Another deranged beauty by Chuck Palahniuk. He's quickly becoming one of my favorite authors, and this particular work has deified Chuck in my pantheon of 'Craziest People I Want To Meet.' A good book to read even if you are not planning on going to Portland. It'll make you laugh at least. Or even better, you'll realize how sane you really are. Another great -- and I mean great -- book I recently picked up off Amazon (can't recommend it enough) is The Losers' Club by Richard Perez, another travelogue of sorts, just as zany and fun as Fugitives and Refugees.
Rating: 
Summary: The Portland THEY Don't Want You To See!
Review: "They" being City Hall and the Portland Business Alliance. But with the likely exception of the rather full chapter on the local sex industry, this headline is something of an exaggerated description of Chuck Palahniuk's Fugitives and Refugees: A Walk In Portland, Oregon.Right from the start of the book -- the Introduction and "A Portland Vocabulary Lesson" -- can be laugh-out-loud. Which sort of sets you up for a kind of whiplash when you get to some of the darker bits. Actually, the juxapositions -- frentically funny to nearly depressing to almost prosaic (there's a section of recipes from local restaurants, for crying out loud) -- can be very jolting. But that's part of the charm, and if you don't go for that sort of thing you should probably just stay away from the book altogether. (Parenthetically, the map presented inside the covers of the book -- 8. Psycho Safeway ... 14. Eviction Court ... 17. Chuck Got Beat Up Here -- is close to inspiring me to put out a call for my fellow local weblog writers to create similar maps of their own, or perhaps a photo project detailing our own personal maps of Portland.) I unavoidably smirked at Palahniuk's inclusion of ACE of Hearts, which he claims is "Portland's premier club for swingers." Before any readers here begin to wonder about me, this struck me because I used to live just across and down from this particular establishment (incidentally, in the only actual house on a stretch of SE 39th Avenue that is otherwise all apartment buildings). Inevitably, part of the entertainment on Friday or Saturday nights was sitting on my front porch watching the ACE of Hearts patrons come and go. Most notable of these evenings was the night the club was circled by a preacher in a van, venting Biblical through a PA system affixed to the vehicle's roof. And not to mire this post in sex, but given my current readings on Portland history, I'm horribly amused to discover that in 1912 there were so many prostitutes working Portland that the mayor "campaigned to turn all of Ross Island into a penal colony solely for sex workers." Most surprisingly, I learned a number of curious things about the Bagdad Theater that I had not known, despite having spent a considerable amount of time there in the not too distant past, and knowing essentially everyone who was working there at the time. Interspersed throughout the book are so-called postcards, which Palahniuk admits "aren't from places so much as from specific Portland moments." Easily the best of these is "a postcard from 1995" in which he describes a late-night visit to the Apocalypse Cafe. What we have is an almost random tour through the bits of Portland that don't show up in City Hall conversations about, say, livability or economic development. Which, in a sense, is odd, because represented in this book is precisely the sort of local culture and economy that ultimately makes Portland, well, Portland. But those conversations always come with baggage, most pressingly in some sense the question, "Livability for whom?" In the end, Fugitives and Refugees documents the cultural livability actually down here on the ground, rather than the pie-in-the-sky visions that pump like so much factory ash from the Portland Development Commission. Portland is far more about Stripper Bingo and the Adult Soapbox Derby than about Major League Baseball, and I'll likely go to my grave believing it shouldn't be any other way.
Rating: 
Summary: Fugitives, Refugees, and Mongoloids
Review: A transgressive travelogue is a seductive, although hardly original, idea. (This will not escape anyone who has seen an episode of the "reality" television program, "Wild Chicago.")
A "guide" that would document the underworld of a city, all of its forbidden zones, its sleaziest grottoes---how fascinating! FUGITIVES AND REFUGEES, unfortunately, is nothing of the sort. It is, rather, a lifeless catalogue of a few tacky tourist attractions, none of which are particularly transgressive or subterranean. In the most blaise manner imaginable, the book mentions some of Portland, Oregon's oddities: world's largest hairball, a strip club run, a "strip bingo" tournament (it's not as interesting as it sounds). All of this is written in a prose that is both dead and deadening. The author describes himself as a "novelist." Any genuine "novelist," however, knows that his/her task is to bring an imaginary world to life, to make chimeras breathe and talk. FUGITIVES AND REFUGEES is not vivid. It is not descriptive. It is not even detailed. We (readers) get the impression that the author has never even visited most of the places that he mentions. Otherwise, he merely lacks descriptive power. If that's the case, then he's not a real writer. The entire book has a "grocery shopping list" feel and look. The author seems to feel that his life is, a priori, interesting to his readers. But his anecdotes ("postcards") are hardly captivating. He seems to feel that a writer is a writer even before s/he has written. But the work gives birth to the writer, not the other way around. The title, by the way, was taken from GEEK LOVE---a real book written by a real writer.
Rating:
Summary: Trangressive Portland, Yum!
Review: As a huge Chuck Palahniuk fan, I loved this book. He takes you for a walk down all the streets of Portland that no one wants you to know about. Much of this book had me laughing aloud. Chuck's postcards that intersperse his travel guide give a glimpse into the author we know and love. Now that I've read this book I want to visit Portland and have some adventures. Chuck has breathed life into a city I didn't know much about before. Highly recommended!
Rating:
Summary: A walk with the Devil
Review: Being a huge Palahniuk fan, this book was a definate pick-up. I wasn't sure how I would like him as a nonfiction writer but I guess it's safe to say that good writing is simply good writing. Portland seems to be a very interesting city and it's easy to see where Chuck is in fact a little bit of Portland himself. I was really more interested in his Postcards though, maybe to get a glimpse of Chuck personally. If your interested in visiting Portland I'd definately recommend this book. And if your a Palahniuk fan you have better already have this.
Rating: 
Summary: Quirky and somewhat hit or miss...
Review: Being a long-time resident of Portland, Oregon, I know that there are plenty of quirky locations in the city. Fugitives And Refugees by Chuck Palahniuk reminded me of that...
This is one of those strange little books that will probably only appeal to those who live (or have lived) in the city. It's sort of a travel guide, personal diary, and social commentary of Palahnuik wrapped into a single small volume. Each chapter that deals with locations or places to see is followed by a "postcard" from the past that relates a personal experience. These are really bizarre stories, and you'll either really like them or wonder why they are even in the book. The chapters on locations list such things as restaurants to see, the most haunted locations in Portland, and museums that are worth visiting. Many of these sites are *not* five star locations you'll see in any other travel guide, like Wacky Willy's Surplus. But it will send you down the path to the off-beat side of Portland.
The part I found most interesting is the chapter on the Shanghai Tunnels. Portland was a notorious port in earlier days, and most of the bars and hotels at that time were connected to an underground tunnel system. These tunnels were used to "shanghai", or abduct, people and smuggle them onto ships for forced labor. There were also opium dens and other uses for these underground passages. Over time they deteriorated, but there are now guided tours and efforts to restore them as part of Portland's past.
Is the book good? It's got moments... For me, it was more hit and miss, however...
Rating:
Summary: Almost perfect
Review: Fans of Chuckie P. will not be disappointed with this book on Portland. As anticipated, it is a hilarious book telling details of a Portland that most of us do not know. Chuck describes all the things you can do in Portland but were afraid to ask (and even more afraid now that you know they exist.) He even has a detailed map, listing items like "place where Chuck got beat up.") Included are destails of the Vacuum Museum and haunted houses. Particularly entertaining is the section of the sex industry in Portland, which seems to be the main industry if you read this book correctly. The only thing missing are the tidbits of Chucks life (those little autobiographical items that would satisfy his loyal fans.) It is still worth buying no matter what. This is another great book from prolific Chuck!
Rating:
Summary: Portland loves you, Chuck
Review: I am not Chuck Palahniuk. I am not his gender, I am not his age, and likely I do not melt in with his social company. However, what he is writing about in "Fugitives and Refugees" struck a fairly nostalgic chord for me, and I think it would for a lot of Portlanders. As the city of Portland attempts more and more to bury downtown in pseudo-kitsch consumerism I think books like this are important reminders of what Portland really is. Cheers to Chuck for not going into the shopping schematics of the city and for being minimalistic about reviewing restaurants. For anyone doubting the nature of Portland, this book will give you the essence that, well, at least I've lived. (Church of Elvis, RIP)
Rating:
Summary: half-baked
Review: I don't know, man. This book seems to have been either held up at the presses, or written over a period of several years, during which Palahniuk never actually frequented any of the places about which he was writing. Quite a few of the things highlighted in this book don't even exist anymore, and haven't for quite some time. Others are profoundly different from how he presents them.
Face it--Portland is a small city (and barely a city at all, more of a town, really) filled with yuppies, families, and young adults who have found a place to live that does not require much of them in the way of ambition. I am not saying that this is a bad thing, nor am I saying that Portland is a bad place to live. All I am saying is, Palahniuk either has no idea what he is talking about, or he just chose a "flavor" for the book and stuck with it, regardless of whether or not it happened to be true.
I may live in Chicago now, but I lived in Portland for fifteen years and still have family and friends who reside there. Having been in and out of Portland for twenty years now, I can comfortably say that this book reads like a half-baked work of fiction, filled with lousy embellishments and lazy filler. Very disappointing.
Rating:
Summary: Walk Like a Egyptian
Review: I have come to love Portland as a vibrant city. It has a unique charm, the older parts of the city are being revamped, and the newest parts of the city are sytlish and upbeat. Portland is not a tourist trap, in fact, the city is fairly empty on weekends. Chuck Palahniuk introduces us to a different Portland. One I was not certain I wanted to know- he writes in a humourous vein that belies the serious stories and charms of the city. However, once I got used to his style I started to enjoy the story of his life in Portland. After he graduated from high school in Washington state, he moved to Portland. Most of his freinds moved to Seattle, but he wanted a different view. He rented an apartment with two friends. These friends stole their food supplies from the restaurants they each worked in- champagne and escargot- each night after work escargot was microwaved, and as they got a little high on champagne they would throw food on the walls.
As the book proceeds,we receive a tour of the city's strip and sex joints, a view of Powell's, the most famous book store on the West Coast and museums we would not ordinarly enter. The author meets, greets and interviews many characters to introduce the varied stories that highlight the old Portland that Chuck Palahniuk grew to love. As a side note this is one of several Crown tours of cities by well known authors- I am eagerly awaiting Kinky Friedman's book of Austin and Ray Bount Jr's book of New Orleans. The map of Portland is not familiar at first view but will be by the end of the book. I thoroughly enjoyed this view of Portland and will remember it every time I visit the city. prisrob
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