Charles Portis

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.

Charles Portis's Titles

Escape Velocity Collected Nonfiction, Short Stories & Drama

Escape Velocity

A varied collection of writing from Charles Portis, a prolific essayist, travel writer, newspaper reporter, and "America's least known great...


True Grit A Novel

True Grit

A #1 New York Times bestseller, Charles Portis's True Grit is "an epic and a legend" (Washington Post), a story of danger and adventure in the...


Dog of the South A Novel

The Dog of the South

"[Charles Portis] understood, and conveyed, the grain of America, in ways that may prove valuable in future to historians trying to understand...


Gringos A Novel

Gringos

Charles Portis's fourth novela truly brilliant, wonderfully bizarre novel by one of our great American novelists. Jimmy Burns is an expatriate...


Masters of Atlantis

The Masters of Atlantis

New York Times bestselling author!"A wonderful talentoriginal, quirky, exciting." Larry McMurtry, author of The Last Picture Show and Terms of...


Norwood A Novel

Norwood

"A great American deadpan comedy. . . . Norwood, like a belt of whiskey, cleared my sinuses right up." ––SlateNorwood, Charles Portis's first...