Porthole

by Joanna Howard, Rita Bullwinkel (editor)

World-renowned art-house film director Helena Désir may (or may not!) be responsible for the on-set death of Corey, her latest muse, leading man of the moment, and frequent bedmate. Haunted by the accident, a long trail of ex-lovers, and the corporate film studio who desperately wants to keep her, their cash cow, at work, Helena unravels and is swiftly delivered to a luxury retreat known as Jaquith House, where fellow sufferers of psychic exhaustion—an agèd sound artist, an international entrepreneur, a tennis pro, a woodsman, twin Finnish massage therapists, and a sex-addicted chef—ferry her from meal, to rest activity, to spa experience, to canoe ride, and back to dinner again, with unmatched hilarity and wit. Told with a captivating quick clip of a gait, Porthole is a portrait of an auteur at the peak of her powers and in the midst of an extravagant, albeit well-dressed, meltdown. Hallucinatory and imagistic, filled to the brim with champagne toasts, boathouse romps, brothels, yoga pants, Parisian hotels, dressing room hookups, and red carpet faux pas, Porthole gifts us the world through the eye of the camera lens, as if through a sea of glass, and If we’ve sinned in the service of art, can we be forgiven?

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction

323 pages, Hardcover

Published June 17, 2025

Reviews

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

PORTHOLE disintegrates boundaries between personhood and performance, auteur and addict, in a beguiling novel about the outer limits of artistic indiscretion. Fellini's 8 1/2 with a twist of Moshfeghian wickedness.

[Nathan Holic · Rating 2 out of 5]

I did not find this engaging or enjoyable.

We will chalk it up to “not my thing.” Maybe it’s yours.

[Kat · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm afraid this was dreadfully boring.

[Samuel Moss · Rating 5 out of 5]

'Porthole' lives somewhere between the normally-plotted-American-literary tradition and the atmospheric-european-innovative tradition.

With a few changes, it might have become a pretty basic novel about a filmmaker reminiscing about her lovers/leading men while recovering from a traumatic event.

Or it could have gone the other way and become completely hazy, plotless (non-derogatory), philosophical work.

The fact that it lives in between, or meanders between one form and the other, is not only masterful, but fits the overall tone of the book perfectly.

There is an arc to the book, or various arcs that rise and fall, meet, intersect, pass and so on. As far as a central theme, it's hard to say what this is, though one can feel it, or them. Notions on the creation of art, of course, but also about the boundaries of identity in art and life: who is the creator? who is the director? who is the actor? who is the character? who is the audience? We expect the boundaries between these roles or identities to be firm and clear but, at least for Helena and her coterie, they tend to shift, dissolve and meld.

For those above reasons (and a few others) a lot of readers are probably going to find this an uncomfortable ride at first. You can't expect that every character that is introduced is going to have some neat purpose or resolution, at least as far as Helena is concerned. Some scenes exist (as far as I could tell) to explore an idea that is related to the rest of the book conceptually, but contributes little to nothing in terms of plot. (This is good. It's like a side quest in a video game, or tunnel in a maze that is filled with beautiful things, but which does not get you to the end.) You'll also have to accept that a gauzy, pensive scene may turn into a long conversation about a past relationship.

There is a single moment, about two-thirds of the way through, that struck my in a way that few moments do any more.:When Helena wakes in David's dressing room to find the medium from the play straddling her, and the medium is revealed to, in fact, be David. This is a beautiful illustration of retroactivity in fiction: we realize (or at least I realized, maybe other readers would understand this from the beginning) suddenly that David, and perhaps all of the other actors are masters of disguise, or at least skilled enough to fool Helena, and that any of 'characters' at Jaquith house could simply be a disguise.

Other notable points: playful Pynchonesque names like George Prawn, a perfume called Bave Cedre, a wine called Longee Duree. Many textual and cinematic references (one of which I caught was Prawn's allusion to 'The Prisoner').

I like that there is mention in the acknowledgments of the 'post-novel'. Surely this term has been around for a while, and it seems so simple as to be inevitable. It's the first time that I've come across it and describes this work perfectly.

[Jonathan Hawpe · Rating 4 out of 5]

8 & 1/2 meets The White Lotus in Joana Howard's fiendishly funny psychological meltdown romp Porthole. The monomaniacal creativity of the Auteur filmmaker is dissected with a satirical humanity that is somehow ruthless and caring simultaneously. If you have previously dug Mona Awad, Otessa Moshfegh, Miranda July's All Fours or Catherine Lacey's Biography Of X, get thee to digging this book!

[Patrick Cottrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

An obsessive yet capacious novel of intrigue and deceit, Porthole is a hilarious and exhilarating provocation about art-making at any cost and the gutting ruthlessness of power. Joanna Howard is a singular talent; her work is propulsive, kinetic, and laser sharp. She is a genius!!

[Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amusing novel about a female filmmaker experiencing a career crisis and convalescing at a kind of mind-spa that does a lot of memory palace stuff I'm not wild about in principle but Howard makes it work. Recommended.

[Holly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lynchian — would be better as a film

[Cory Aitchison · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 rounded up - writing was nice but overall pretty blah.