True Grit
1968
- death
- teenage girls
- western fiction
- united states marshals
- fathers
- fiction in english
- revenge
- fiction
- outlaws
- fiction, westerns
The story
True Grit is Charles Portis' most famous novel--first published in 1968. 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.
What it’s like
Dry, clipped, faintly formal prose, delivered in the flat deadpan voice of a fourteen-year-old narrator who reports terrible events with the same matter-of-fact care she gives to a bill of sale. The sensory world is hard and open: frontier towns of mud and wood smoke, cold river crossings, scrubby Indian Territory country, horses picked out by their color and temperament, saddle leather and cheap whiskey. Vibe: wry, austere, quietly funny, with an undertow of grief. It suits a rainy Sunday with a strong cup of coffee, a long train ride, or a reread when you want something sharp rather than soothing. The pace is brisk and episodic, with dialogue doing much of the work and long stretches of travel broken by sudden bursts of gunfire. Intensity is moderate: several killings and a shooting at the start, a hanging described without lingering gore, and violence that lands abruptly and is rarely dwelt on. Mattie and Cogburn form an odd, prickly partnership, slowly yielding a grudging respect across a rough, combative road. It is for readers who enjoy spare, witty voices, classic Westerns, and stubborn, hard-edged heroines.
More books like True Grit
Closest in mood, pacing and theme. Tell us why you loved True Gritand we’ll explain which ones fit you.
