Charles Portis is the latest writer to receive canonization from the Library of America.
The chronicler of American literature has published a volume of Portis' collected works. Edited by Jay Jennings, the book includes Portis' celebrated "True Grit," as well as his lesser known novels "Norwood," "The Dog of the South," "Masters of Atlantis" and "Gringos." The collection also offers a selection of Portis' journalism.
Portis is one of those writers acclaimed by a passionate inner circle of readers. Like Mark Twain, Portis was a comic master who found literary gold in the American South's vernacular.
The Library of America volume has brought new critical appreciation for Portis' off-beat characters, outlandish plots and droll dialogue. While "True Grit" remains in print, Portis' other work is difficult to find.
Praised by fellow New York Herald-Tribune writer Thomas Wolfe as a new journalism pioneer, Portis stepped away from his post as the newspaper's London correspondent in 1964 and returned to his native Arkansas to write novels. The success of "True Grit," made into two popular movies, stirred Wolfe's admiration.
Portis, who died in 2020 at the age of 86, deserves the wider recognition the Library of America volume will bring as one of his generation's most distinctive writers.
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