The Unofficial Charles Portis Website

"Had they determined him to be half crazy all the time or full crazy half the time? [ . . . ] He had whatever the opposite of paranoia is called. He thought everybody liked him and took a deep personal interest in his welfare. But then everybody did like him."
- Jimmy, on retired bowler and sports poet Mott, Gringos, 72-73.

New for 7/18/02-8/6/02

Uploaded Joseph Parry's thesis paper, entitled "Charles Portis: Study of a Cult Novelist". It examines Midge, from The Dog of the South, with regards to her narrative capacity.
Don't delay! Read the newly uploaded interview with Charles Portis (37 pages)!

Message board

Leave your mark on our Portis discussion! View the now infamous "hippies" remark!
If you were in Professor Vesterman's seminar on Charles Portis and Tom Wolfe, please either email your final paper to me to be posted on this website, or post a link to your final paper on the message board. If you were not in this class, but you have written something about Charles Portis, don't hesitate to email me as well.

Mission statement

The Unofficial Charles Portis website aims to be a virtual cornucopia of book reviews and biographical pieces related to its namesake. Through the transcription and uploading of several rare articles, I hope to enrich the discourse surrounding the author in the online community. I hope you enjoy your stay.
--Alex T. Moore

Biographical information

Charles (McColl) Portis

Family: Born December 28, 1933, in El Dorado, AR; son of Samuel Palmer (a school superintendent) and Alice (Waddell) Portis.

Education: University of Arkansas, B.A., 1958.

Religion: Presbyterian.

Military/Wartime Service: U.S. Marine Corps, 1952-55; became sergeant.

Agent: Lynn Nesbit, Janklow and Nesbit Associates, 598 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10022.

Career: Commercial Appeal, Memphis, TN, reporter, 1958; Arkansas Gazette, Little Rock, reporter, 1959-60; New York Herald Tribune, New York, NY, reporter and London correspondent, 1960-64; freelance writer, 1964- .

Commentary: Charles Portis' comic skill has been characterized in many ways, which can be loosely amalgamated into the idea that Portis delivers to us obsessive, often humorless eccentrics that produce unself-conscious monologues over the course of fruitless quests, all in a deadpan tone that doesn't give so much as a wink to the reader. Katherine A. Powers of The Boston Globe echoes this sentiment in saying, "Here (Father Jackie, from Dog of the South) is revealing - as all Portis's characters do - a little more than he knows and illustrating the author's marvelous ear for quirks and for huge banalities that pass as conversation when things really get going" ( The Boston Globe, 11/18/01).

Published works (with reviews)

Novels (chronological)

*Norwood.* New York: Simon and Schuster, 1966.
Norwood review, by Martis Levin	The New York Times	??/??/66
"New and Noteworthy Paperbacks"	The New York Times	11/10/85
"Book Review Revue."	The Stranger.	09/23/99
"Reissues: Norwood."	Entertainment Weekly	12/09/99
"New and Noteworthy Paperback"	The New York Times	01/18/00
"Grim's Favorite Tales."	Peninsula Pulse	Summer 2000
"Reissues Redouble the Laughter"	The Denver Post	10/31/??
"Rediscover Authors You've Never Heard Of"	BookSense.com	n.a.
"Grim's Favorite Tales."	Peninsula Pulse	Summer 2000

*True Grit* New York: Simon and Schuster, 1968.
"Song and Swagger of the Old West"	Saturday Review	06/29/68
"Mattie Ross's True Account"	The New York Times	07/07/68
"True Grit"	The Nation	10/05/68
"Portis' True Grit: Adventure or Entwicklungsroman?" by R. Baird Shuman	English Journal	03/??/70
"Western Justice"	Newsday	05/20/01

*The Dog of the South.* New York: Knopf, 1979.
"Books of the Times"	The New York Times	06/22/79
"A Glorious Gift for Gab"	Newsweek	07/09/79
"Middle American Journey into Hell"	Book World	??/??/79
"Papertrail,"	The Village Voice	09/21/99
" The Dog of the South,"	Amazon.com	n.a.
"Dog of the South Review"	Library Journal	4/15/79

*Masters of Atlantis.* New York: Knopf, 1985.
"Books of the Times"	The New York Times	10/07/85
"Pletho Pappus and the Doughboy"	The New York Times	10/27/85
"A Cult from The Lost Continent"	The Washington Post	10/27/85
Masters of Atlantis review, by John McNally	The Missouri Review	n.a.
"Masters of Atlantis"	Library Journal	5/15/00

*Gringos.* New York: Simon and Schuster, 1991.
"New and Noteworthy	The Los Angeles Times	01/06/91
"Hapless Americans Adrift in Mexico"	Newsday	01/14/91
"Happy Motoring in Mexico"	Newsweek	01/14/91
"A Quest to Kill Time in the Yucatan"	The New York Times	01/19/91
"Weirdos in a Strange Land"	The New York Times	01/20/91
"Macho Mush in Mexico"	The St. Petersburg Times	01/20/91
"Slouching Toward Yucatan"	The Washington Post	02/10/91
"Ambling with Odballs and Misfits"	The Boston Globe	02/11/91
"Books Briefly -- Gringos"	The Seattle Times	03/03/91
"A Satirist at the Top of His Form"	The Toronto Star	05/18/91
"Rollin' Down the Forgotten River"	The Washtington Post	09/01/91
"On the Shelf"	The New York Daily News	11/12/00
"New and Noteworthy Paperbacks"	The New York Times	11/12/00
"Gringos Review"	Library Journal	1/??/91
"Gringos Review 2"	Library Journal	5/15/01

Periodical articles (chronological)

"The New Sound from Nashville," Saturday Evening Post, 239 (12 Feb ruary 1966): 30-38.
"Traveling Light," Saturday Evening Post, 239 (18 June 1966): 54-77 ; 239 (2 July 1966): 48-75.
"True Grit," Saturday Evening Post, 241 (18 May 1968): 68-85; 241 (1 June 1968): 46-61; 241 (15 June 1968): 44-57.
"Your Action Line," The New Yorker, 53 (12 December 1977): 42-43. Faulkner Wells, Dean, ed. The Great American Writers' Cookbook. Oxford: Yoknapatawpha Press (1981). (Edited by and with an introduction by Craig Claiborne, food critic for The New York Times: A collection of recipes from 175 writers -- Several wr iters, including Joseph Heller and Charles Portis, contribute excuses.)
"Nights Can Turn Cool in Viborra." The Atlantic Monthly, 270 (Dec. 1992): 101-106.
"I Don't Talk Service No More." The Atlantic Monthly, May 1996 Vol 277, No. 5, pp 90-92.
"Combinations of Jacksons." The Atlantic Monthly, May, 1999 Vol 283 No. 5, pp 81-92. (A Memoir)
- "Combinations of Jacksons" review, Washington Post

Criticism

Books about the author (alphabetical)

"Charles (McColl) Portis," in Contemporary Authors. (A profile of the author's life and works)
Cleary, Michael. "Charles Portis." Twentieth Century Western Writers. Detroit: Gale Research Company,1982. (Possibly Geoff Sadler, ed., and Cleary is contributor? Accessed on Book In Print online database.)
Colby, Vineta (ed.) World Authors 1980-1985. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1991.
Connaughton, Michael E. "Charles Portis," Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume American Novelists Since World War Two, second series. Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1980.
Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 6: American Novelists since World WarII, second series, Gale (Detroit), 1980.
Idol, John L. "Charles (McColl) Portis (1933-)," Contemporary Fiction Writers of the South: A Bio-Bibliographical Sourcebook. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 1993.
Magill, Frank N. Magill's Survey of American Literature, Volume 5. New York: Marshall Cavendish Corporation, 1991.
Twentieth-Century Western Writers, 2nd edition, St. James Press (Detroit), 1991.
Updating the Literary West: A Supplement to A Literature History of the West. (See Bob Frye Chapter.) October 1997 by Texas Christian University Press.
Wolfe, Tom, The New Journalism, Harper (New York City), 1973, p. 9.

Periodicals about the author (alphabetical)

America, November 20, 1968.
Annan, Sophie. "True Grit: Charles Portis' novels get a second shot with American readers." Northern California Bohemian, January 18, 2001.
Baker, Jeff. The Oregonian writer analyzes Portis' reclusion.
Berrett, Jesse. The Citypages.com writer lionizes Portis.
Berrett, Jesse. "Portis' Head." City Pages, October 20, 1999.
Best Sellers, July 1, 1968, p. 28.
Blount Jr., Roy. "There's More to Southern Humor Than Foot-Long Pecan Rolls." The New York Times. Date unkown.
Book Week, August 21, 1966, p. 6.
Carlson, Peter. "Charles Portis, Rambling Back to Arkansas Boyhood."
"Charles Portis." Literature Resource Center. Online database on Galenet. Accessed Sep. 2001.
Chicago Tribune, July 8, 1979.
Cruickshank, Douglas. Salon.com column about Twain, Eisner, and Portis.
Duggan, Dennis. "Giants of the Grand Old Tribune; That Paper We'll Never Forget, and the People Who Made It Vibrate". Newsday, May 15, 1994.
Duggan, Dennis. "Turning the Last Page of the Trib". Newsday, March 17, 1999.
Feeney, Mark. "Exploring a Writer Whose Characters Have the Truest of Grit". The Boston Globe, March 14, 1999.
Frye, Bob. "The Role of Below-the-Border Locale in a Writer of the Southwest: Comic Vision in Charles Portis's The Dog of the South and Gringos," Southwestern American Literature Session, South Central Modern Language Association, 26-28 October 1995, Houston, TX.
Lethem, Jonathan. "Screened Out." Salon.com, October 18, 1999.
Library Journal, May 1, 1968, p. 1918; April 15, 1979.
Lyons, Gene. "Telling Shaggy Dog Stories". Newsweek, September 30, 1985.
McDowell, Edwin. "5-Year-Old Southern Novel Enjoys a Sales Boom". The New York Times, April 9, 1984.
McLemee, Scott. The Charles Portis Appreciation Society. Newsday, November 19, 2000.
"Our Least-Known Great Novelist." Esquire, January,1998. Westbrook, Max and Dan Flores, eds.
Powers, Katherine A. "Portis's Potent Southern Comfort". The Boston Globe, November 18, 2001.
Rosenbaum, Ron. "Of Gnats and Men: A New Reading of Portis." The New York Observer, 05/24/99. P. 39.
Swindle, Michael. "Comic masterpieces saved; Visionary publisher reissues hilarious novels of Charles Portis". The Houston Chronicle, January 16, 2000.
Tampa Tribune: "Discovering the Arkansas Chekhov" Jan 27, 1991
Winegardner, Mark. "True Grit: The Importance of Reading Portis," Barnes&Noble.com.

Miscellaneous

Download 35 Charles Portis-related articles to store on your hard drive and view offline, all in one 153k .zip file (winzip needed)
View this quick tutorial on downloading the 35 articles.
Reed, Roy. "Interview with Charles Portis" (37 pages). Gazette Project, May 31, 2001.
Moore, Alex T. "Charles Portis Through His Critics' Eyes: All Eighty-eight Pages of Atlantean Puzzles, Egyptian Riddles and Extended Alchemical Metaphors." A virtual tour guide through the morass that is the criticism of Charles Portis' works, I wrote this 20-page paper for a seminar. Please give me feedback on the paper.
Parry, Joseph. " Charles Portis: Study of a Cult Novelist". This thesis paper examines Midge, from The Dog of the South, with regards to her narrative capacity.
Portis, Charles. "I wasn't part of any Herald Tribune 'literary movement' in the 1960s." (or view the text version). A personal letter written to Celine Hagan of the aforementioned seminar on Portis and Wolfe, responding to her queries about Clay Felker and his status, or lack thereof, as a "New Journalist," among other things.
Portis, Charles. A second letter from Portis to Miss Hagan.
Schwartz, Jonah. "A Not-So-Hypo-Urbane Study of True Grit." This 20-page paper, written for a seminar on the author and Tom Wolfe, puts in dialogue the western-flavored classic with the movie that claims to be inspired by it.
Tim Cavanaugh of Feed magazine interviews Portis advocate Ron Bosenbaum about the Portis fan club.
Purchase one of Charles Portis' novels directly from The Overlook Press.
The state of Arkansas honors Charles Portis.
The Church of Euthanasia. "Editorial." Snuff It, June 1, 1994.

Acknowledgements

Contributors

Thanks to Professor Vesterman of the English department at Rutgers University for introducing me and several other undergraduates to Portis, and for holding a seminar focusing specifically on Portis and Tom Wolfe.
Thanks to my classmates whose dedicated research yielded the majority of the information on this website.

Links

Thanks to Vered Kleinberger of Emory University for creating an excellent website on Charles Portis, from which I'm afraid I've borrowed liberally.
Thanks to The Brothers Judd for pointing me toward many a review of Portis' novels.

Please submit any Portis-esque information to Alex. If you feel that any of the content on this website should not be here, for any reason, please email me immediately and I will address your concern. Thanks.