Charles Portis has long been acclaimed as one of America's foremost comic writers.
Charles Portis has long been acclaimed as one of America's foremost comic writers.
True Grit is his most famous novel--first published in 1968, and the basis for the movie of the same name starring John Wayne. It tells the story of Mattie Ross, who is just fourteen years of age when a coward going by the name of Tom Chaney shoots her father down in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and robs him of his life, his horse, and $150 in cash money. Mattie leaves home to avenge her father's blood. With the one-eyed Rooster Cogburn, the meanest available U.S. Marshal, by her side, Mattie pursues the homicide into Indian Territory. True Grit is eccentric, cool, straight, and unflinching, like Mattie herself. From a writer of true cult status, this is an American classic through and through. This new edition, with a smart new package and an afterword by acclaimed author Donna Tartt, will bring this masterpiece to an even broader audience.
“"Tom Wolfe, who worked with Portis as a reporter at the New York Herald-Tribune in the early 1960s called him 'the original laconic cutup.' A generation of novelists since then have simply regarded him as a writers' writer and have made his name a sort of secret password. Soon, they'll no longer have him to themselves." -- Rolling Stone Magazine "An epic and a legend."-- The Washington Post "Like Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn and Thomas Berger's Little Big Man , Charles Portis's True Grit captures the na”
"Charles Portis is an original, indescribable sui generis talent . . . Rereading Portis is one of the great pure pleasures--both visceral and cerebral--available in modern American literature."--Ron Rosenbaum "Esquire"
"Charles Portis's True Grit captures the naive elegance of the American Voice."-- "Jonathan Lethem"
"Charles Portis's True Grit is a masterpiece."--Anthony Bourdain "New York Times Book Review"
"How to describe the indescribable? Probably the best description I can give of True Grit is that I've never given it to any reader -- male or female, of any age or sensibility -- who didn't enjoy it." --Donna Tartt "New York Times Book Review"
"It's possible that True Grit is the genuine article--a book so strong that it reads as myth."--Ed Park "The Believer"
"Skillfully constructed, a comic tour de force."-- "New York Times Book Review"
"The dialogue in True Grit is exquisite."--David Mamet "The Week"
Charles Portis lives in Arkansas where he was born and educated. He served in the Marine Corps during the Korean War. He was the London bureau chief of the New York Herald-Tribune, for which he also wrote as a reporter. He is the author of Dog of the South, Masters of Atlantis, Gringos, and Norwood.
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