True Grit

by Charles Portis, Donna Tartt (Afterword)

Overview

True Grit is the basis for two movies, the 1969 classic starring John Wayne and the Academy Award® winning 2010 version starring Jeff Bridges and written and directed by the Coen brothers.    True Grit 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. 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 status, this is an American classic through and through.   This mass-market edition includes an afterword by award-winning Donna Tartt, author of The Little Friend and The Secret History.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781585679386
Publisher:	The Overlook Press
Publication date:	08/28/2007
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 1.00(d)
Lexile:	800L (what's this?)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Charles Portis (1933–2020) lived most of his life in Arkansas, where he was born and raised. He was a graduate of the University of Arkansas, which in 2018 awarded him an honorary doctorate in Humane Letters. He served in the Marine Corps during the Korean War, was the London bureau chief of the New York Herald-Tribune, and was a writer for The New Yorker. He is the author of four other novels, also available from the Overlook Press: Norwood, The Dog of the South, Masters of Atlantis, and Gringos. A selection of his writing has been collected in Escape Velocity: A Charles Portis Miscellany.

What People are Saying About This

Roald Dahl

"True Grit is the best novel to come my way in a very long time… Marvelous."

John Wayne

I loved that book. Charles Portis got a real Mark Twain feeling, the cynicism and the humor. I tried to buy the book myself.

Jonathan Lethem

“Like Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn … Charles Portis's True Grit captures the naïve elegance of the American voice.”

From the Publisher

“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 nanve elegance of the American voice.' — Jonathan Lethem

'An instant classic...Read it and have the most fun you've had reading a novel in years, maybe decades.' — Newsday

'Skillfully constructed, a comic tour de force.' — The New York Times Book Review

'Charles Portis details the savagery of the 1870s frontier through an astonishing narrative voice: that of the 14-year- old Mattie Ross, a flinty, skeptical, Bible-thumping scourge' — Wall Street Journal

'I loved that book. Charles Portis got a real Mark Twain feeling, the cynicism and the humor. I tried to buy the book myself.' — John Wayne

Editorial Reviews

An instant classic....Read it and have the most fun you've had reading a novel in years, maybe decades.

Newsday

Skillfully constructed, a comic tour de force.

The New York Times Book Review

An epic and a legend.

The Washington Post

Skillfully constructed, a comic tour de force.

New York Times Book Review

The dialogue in True Grit is exquisite.

The Week - David Mamet

Rollicking . . . a beaut narrated in the unforgettable voice of Mattie Ross . . . Portis has crazy-cool literary swagger.

Entertainment Weekly

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.

Esquire - Ron Rosenbaum

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

An epic and a legend.

Washington Post

I’ve always thought Charles Portis had a wonderful talent—original, quirky, exciting.

Larry McMurtry

Quite simply, an American masterpiece.

Boston Globe

It’s possible that True Grit is the genuine article—a book so strong that it reads as myth."

The Believer - Ed Park

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

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

“Skillfully constructed, a comic tour de force.”—New York Times Book Review

“Quite simply, an American masterpiece.”—Boston Globe

“Rollicking . . . a beaut narrated in the unforgettable voice of Mattie Ross . . . Portis has crazy-cool literary swagger.”—Entertainment Weekly

“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

“It’s possible that True Grit is the genuine article—a book so strong that it reads as myth."—Ed Park, The Believer

“Charles Portis’s True Grit is a masterpiece.”—Anthony Bourdain, New York Times Book Review

“The dialogue in True Grit is exquisite.”—David Mamet, The Week

“I’ve always thought Charles Portis had a wonderful talent—original, quirky, exciting.”—Larry McMurtry

“An epic and a legend.”—Washington Post

“Charles Portis’s True Grit captures the naive elegance of the American Voice.”—Jonathan Lethem

From the Publisher

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.

New York Times Book Review - Donna Tartt

"True Grit is the best novel to come my way in a very long time… Marvelous."

Roald Dahl

"Like Twain, Portis respects his young narrator as a human being with a fully developed moral sensibility, even when the adults in the novel don't."

Los Angeles Times