Charles Portis: new books, used books, rare books by Portis, Charles @ BookFinder.com

ISBN 9780747572640 (0-7475-7264-X, 074757264X)

by Charles Portis

ISBN 074757264X (0-7475-7264-X)
Softcover, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Dog of the South'

Book summary:

Charles Portis may be the sneakiest comedian in American letters, not to mention one of the funniest. And there's no better specimen of his double-edged art than The Dog of the South, which Overlook Press has recently rescued from a long, cruel, out-of-print limbo. As usual, the narrator is a down-at-the-heels Southerner with an eye for the homely detail and a mission to accomplish. What Ray Midge means to do is track down his significant other: "My wife Norma had run off with Guy Dupree and I was waiting around for the credit card billings to come in so I could see where they had gone." In another author's hands, this opening sentence might lead straight to a bloody, noir-ish denouement. Here it's merely the excuse for a meandering, semi-pointless quest, during which the fussbudget protagonist is assailed by tropical storms, grifters, hippies, car trouble, and even an assortment of airborne trash: "I had to keep the Buick speed below what I took to be about sixty because at that point the wind came up through the floor hole in such a way that the Heath wrappers were suspended behind my head in a noisy brown vortex."

Hapless, rhetorically challenged Ray Midge would more than fulfill any novel's quota for comic creation. But Portis pairs him with another indelible nutter, Dr. Reo Symes. A font of dubious financial schemes, Symes attaches himself to Ray like a peevish, passive-aggressive Pancho Sanza, and his non-sequitur-studded riffs must be heard to be believed:

I always tried to help Leon and you see the thanks I got. I hired him to drive for me right after his rat died. He was with the Murrell Brothers Shows at that time, exhibiting a fifty-pound rat from the sewers of Paris, France. Of course it didn't really weigh fifty pounds and it wasn't your true rat and it wasn't from Paris, France, either. It was some kind of animal from South America. Anyway, the thing died and I hired Leon to drive for me. I was selling birthstone rings and vibrating jowl straps from door to door and he would let me out at one end of the block and wait on me at the other end.

The vibrating jowl straps are the kicker here, of course. But it's the overall futility of the enterprise that gives Symes his comic potency, and makes him Ray's natural companion in arms. Neither of these guys is going to accomplish anything: they're Beckett clowns in Sansabelt trousers, too enervated by the heat even to agonize. Still, you won't find a more delicious (or less reliable) narrator in contemporary fiction, and Charles Portis's genius for inventing all-American eccentrics is anything but futile. --James Marcus [via]

More editions of The Dog of the South:

ISBN 9781585670932 (1-58567-093-6, 1585670936)

via

Gringos

by Charles Portis

ISBN 1585670936 (1-58567-093-6)
Softcover, Penguin USA

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Gringos'

Book summary:

The Portis revival roars on with a brilliantly wry novel featuring Jimmy Burns, an expatriate who just wants to be left alone. Jimmy Burns is an American living in Mexico who has an uncommonly astute eye for the absurd little details that comprise your average American. For a time, Jimmy spent his days unearthing pre-Colombian artifacts. Now he makes a living doing small trucking jobs and helping out with the occasional missing person situation whatever it takes to remain the very picture of an American idler in Mexico, right down to the grass-green golfing trousers. But Jimmy's laid back lifestyle is being seriously imposed upon by a ninety-pound stalker called Louise whose particular fascination with Jimmy is a mystery to him. Add to this a sudden wave of hippies (led by a murderous ex-con guru) in search of psychic happenings, archaeologists unearthing (illegally) the Mayan tombs, and Louise and her weirdo husband s quest for UFO landing sites, and Jimmy's simple South-of-the-Border existence is facing a clear and present danger. [via]

More editions of Gringos:

Masters of Atlantis

by Charles Portis

ISBN 1585670219 (1-58567-021-9)
Softcover, Overlook Pr

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Masters of Atlantis'

More editions of Masters of Atlantis:

Norwood

by Charles Portis

ISBN 1568494033 (1-56849-403-3)
Hardcover, Buccaneer Books

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Norwood: Library Edition'

Book summary:

Norwood, the first novel by the long-acclaimed Charles Portis, is an outstanding example of the cool wit and unique style that has made Portis one of Americas greatest writers. How good is this novel? One Portis fan couldnt decide whether to marry the woman he loved until she read Norwood.

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 Trailway bus; befriended Edmund B. Ratner, the second shortest midget in show business; and helped Joann, the chicken with a college education, realize her true potential in life. As with all of Portiss fiction, the tone is cool, sympathetic, funny, and undeniably American. [via]

More editions of Norwood: