Charles Portis Books In Order

Standalone Novels In Publication Order

  1. Norwood (1966)
  2. True Grit (1968)
  3. The Dog of the South (1979)
  4. Masters of Atlantis (1985)
  5. Gringos (1991)

Short Story Collections In Publication Order

  1. Escape Velocity (2012)

Standalone Novels Book Covers

Short Story Collections Book Covers

Charles Portis Books Overview

Norwood

Norwood, the first novel by the long acclaimed Charles Portis, is an outstanding example of the cool wit and unique style that has made Portis one of America’s greatest writers. How good is this novel? One Portis fan couldn t decide whether to marry the woman he loved until she read Norwood. Out of the American Neon Desert of Roller Dromes, chili parlors, The Grand Ole Opry, and girls who want to live in a trailer and play records all night comes ex marine and troubadour Norwood Pratt. Sent on a mission to New York by Grady Fring, the Kredit King, Norwood has visions of speeding across the country in a late model car, seeing all the sights. Instead, he gets involved in a wild journey that takes him in and out of stolen cars, freight trains, and buses. By the time he returns home to Ralph, Texas, Norwood has met his true love, Rita Lee, on a Trailway bus; befriended Edmund B. Ratner, the second shortest midget in show business; and helped Joann, the chicken with a college education, realize her true potential in life. As with all of Portis s fiction, the tone is cool, sympathetic, funny, and undeniably American.

True Grit

Charles Portis has 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 for which he won his only Academy Award, it tells the story of Mattie Ross, a fourteen year old girl from Dardanelle, Arkansas, who sets out in the winter of eighteen seventy something to avenge the murder of her father. Since not even Mattie who is no self doubter would ride into Indian Territory alone, she ‘convinces’ one eyed ‘Rooster’ Cogburn, the meanest available U.S. Marshall, to tag along with her. As Mattie outdickers and outmaneuvers the hard bitten types in her path, as her performance under fire makes them eat their words, her indestructible vitality and harsh innocence by turns amuse, horrify, and touch the reader. What happens to Mattie, to the gang of outlaws unfortunate enough to tangle with her rings with the dramatic rightness of legend and the marvelous overtones, the continual surprises, of personality. True Grit is eccentric, cool, straight and unflinching, like Mattie herself, who tells the story a half century later in a voice that sounds strong and sure enough to outlast us all.

The Dog of the South

Ray Midge is waiting for his credit card bill to arrive. His wife, Norma, has run off with her ex husband, taking Ray’s cards, shotgun and car. But from the receipts, Ray can track where they’ve gone. He takes off after them, as does an irritatingly tenacious bail bondsman, both following the romantic couple’s spending as far as Mexico. There Ray meets Dr Reo Symes, the seemingly down on his luck and rather eccentric owner of a beaten up and broken down bus, who needs a ride to Belize. The further they drive, in a car held together by coat hangers and excesses of oil, the wilder their journey gets. But they’re not going to give up easily.

Masters of Atlantis

Lamar Jimmerson is the leader of the Gnomon Society, the international fraternal order dedicated to preserving the arcane wisdom of the lost city of Atlantis. Stationed in France in 1917, Jimmerson comes across a little book crammed with Atlantean puzzles, Egyptian riddles, and extended alchemical metaphors. It’s the Codex Pappus the sacred Gnomon text. Soon he is basking in the lore of lost Atlantis, convinced that his mission on earth is to administer to and extend the ranks of the noble brotherhood. Masters of Atlantis is a cock eyed journey into an America of misfits and con men, oddballs, and innocents.

Gringos

Following the enormous success of the reissues of Charles Portis’s first three novels The Dog of the South, Norwood, and Masters of Atlantis comes the reissue of a fourth truly brilliant, wonderfully bizarre novel by one of our great American novelists. Jimmy Burns is an expatriate American living in Mexico who has an uncommonly astute eye for the absurd little details that comprise your average American. For a time, Jimmy spent his days unearthing pre Colombian artifacts. Now he makes a living doing small trucking jobs and helping out with the occasional missing person situation whatever it takes to remain ‘the very picture of an American idler in Mexico, right down to the grass green golfing trousers.’ But when Jimmy’s laid back lifestyle is seriously imposed upon by a ninety pound stalker called Louise, a sudden wave of ‘hippies’ led by a murderous ex con guru in search of psychic happenings, and a group of archaeologists who are unearthing illegally Mayan tombs, his simple South of the Border existence faces a clear and present danger.

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