There is no knowing what lies in a man's heart. On a trip to buy ponies, Frank Ross is killed by one of his own workers. Tom Chaney shoots him down in the street for a horse, USD150 cash, and two Californian gold pieces. Ross's unusually mature and single-minded fourteen-year-old daughter Mattie travels to claim his body, and finds that the authorities are doing nothing to find Chaney. Then she hears of Rooster - a man, she's told, who has grit - and convinces him to join her in a quest into dark, dangerous Indian territory to hunt Chaney down and avenge her father's murder.

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.

Though Charles Portis is best known for his fiction writing, he is also a prolific essayist, travel writer, and newspaper reporter. Collected here in "Escape Velocity," edited by Jay Jennings, is his "miscellany" -- journalism, short fiction, memoir, and even the play "Delray's New Moon," published for the first time in this volume. Portis covers topics as varied as the civil rights movement, road tripping in Baja, and Elvis' s visits to his aging mother for publications such as the "New York Herald Tribune" and "Saturday Evening Post." Fans of Portis's droll Southern humor and quirky characters will be thrilled at this new addition to his library, and those not yet familiar with his work will find a great introduction to him here. Also included are tributes by accomplished authors including Donna Tartt and Ron Rosenbaum.

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 Trailways bus; befriended Edmund B. Ratner, the second shortest midget in show business and "the world's smallest perfect fat man"; and helped Joann, "the chicken with a college education, " realize her true potential in life.

Lamar Jimmersan, an American doughboy in 1917 France, learns that his life's purpose is to administer the brotherhood of the Gnomons, preserves of the wisdom of the lost city of Atlantis, and Gnomonism rises and eventually fades away in America.

As a novelist with a brilliantly singular vision of America, Charles Portis has invited comparisons to Pynchon and DeLillo. This reissue of The Dog of the South, to be followed by Masters of Atlantis, Norwood, and Gringos, is the perfect Portis initiation for new readers and a welcome reunion for longtime fans.

The Dog of the South is the story of Ray Midge tracking down his wife, Norma -- who has run off with her first husband -- by following credit card receipts (His credit card!). Midge starts out in Norma's lover's compact car, which has 74,000 miles on it and a quarter-turn slack in the steering wheel (They took his Ford Torino!). The trail leads from Arkansas, down to Mexico, and into Honduras, where Midge stops to help, and of course gets entangled with, Dr. Reo Symes in his broken down bus. "The Dog of the South". Symes is a pure Portis character -- a crazily optimistic, broken-down dreamer obsessed with secret knowledge in the form of John Selmer Dix, the elusive writer of inspirational books for salesmen. As Midge chases Norma and Symes tries to sort the true from the false Dix sightings, Portis spins an extraordinary novel that addresses with comic eloquence the deep longing of the American psyche for things just to make some sense.