Escape Velocity: A Charles Portis Miscellany ebook

by Jay Jennings,Charles Portis

Jay Jennings Charles Portis Short Stories and Anthologies English

Jay Jennings has done a great service in putting together Escape Velocity: A Charles Portis Miscellany and providing it with an excellent introduction and appreciation.

Jay Jennings has done a great service in putting together Escape Velocity: A Charles Portis Miscellany and providing it with an excellent introduction and appreciation. Delray's New Moon, the single example here of Portis as a dramatist, is a wonderful black comedy and tour de force of inspired dialog.

Escape Velocity: A Charles Portis Miscellany is a collection of non-fiction, journalism, short stories, and single play - Delray's New Moon - by the novelist Charles Portis, the author most famous for True Grit. Subjects covered by Portis include the civil rights movement, a road trip in Baja, and Elvis Presley's visit to his aging mother. Some of the works originally appeared in such publications such as the New York Herald Tribune and Saturday Evening Post.

Now, for the first time, his other writings-journalism, travel stories, short fiction, memoir, and even a play-have been brought together in Escape Velocity: A Charles Portis Miscellany, his first new book in more than twenty years. All the familiar Portis elements are here: picaresque adventures, deadpan humor, an expert eye for detail and keen ear for the spoken word, and encounters with oddball characters both real and imagined. The collection encompasses the breadth of his fifty-year writing career, from his gripping reportage of the civil rights movement for the New York Herald Tribune.

I don’t know of any others Jay Jennings lives in his hometown of Little Rock, Arkansas, where he is a freelance writer. I don’t know of any others. Escape Velocity: A Charles Portis Miscellany is also highly gratifying. Jay Jennings lives in his hometown of Little Rock, Arkansas, where he is a freelance writer.

Which brings me to Escape Velocity: A Charles Portis Miscellany (the .

Which brings me to Escape Velocity: A Charles Portis Miscellany (the title comes from a line spoken by the main character in his third novel, The Dog of the South: "A lot of people leave Arkansas and most of them come back sooner or later. They can't quite achieve escape velocity.

Also by Charles Portis. In October, Knopf published Masters of Atlantis, Portis’s first novel in six years, and I immediately bought a copy from WordsWorth Books in Little Rock (still there! Long live independent bookstores!)

Also by Charles Portis. I. What You Will Find Here. This collection began life as a fat folder in my file cabinet. In October, Knopf published Masters of Atlantis, Portis’s first novel in six years, and I immediately bought a copy from WordsWorth Books in Little Rock (still there! Long live independent bookstores!). Screwing up my courage with the knowledge that I was also now a published writer (Spectrum) and perhaps more significantly that my mother, Portis’s contemporary, was also from south Arkansas, I called him up (using my home-field advantage to get his number) and asked if he would sign my book.

Charles Portis’s essays, journalism and travel writing can be read as a key to the experiences that shaped his novels

Charles Portis’s essays, journalism and travel writing can be read as a key to the experiences that shaped his novels. You can enjoy Escape Velocity as a stand-alone collection, but a Portis miscellany will always be read too as a key to the experiences and craft lessons that shaped the novels. Take the opening sentences of a piece Portis wrote in 1962 when The New York Herald Tribune, the writer’s newspaper where he worked alongside Tom Wolfe and Jimmy Breslin, sent him to check out an upstate hospital’s antismoking program: Another day of lethargy in this bee-loud glade, trying to kick the smoking habit.

There's so much mystery around Charles Portis that we're not even clear whether he’s alive. Despite critical acclaim and a devoted fan base, the American author seems destined to remain on the sidelines. Escape Velocity: A Charles Portis Miscellany Jay Jennings (ed). Overlook Duckworth, p. 64, £. 9. The American writer, Charles Portis, has had what some novelists - the more purist ones - might regard as an ideal life. While his books have seldom been big-sellers, his fans sink to their knees at the mention of his name.

Charles Portis, Jay Jennings. For those who care about literature or simply love a good laugh (or both), Charles Portis has long been one of America's most admired novelists. His 1968 novel True Grit is fixed in the contemporary canon, and four more have been hailed as comic masterpieces. Now, for the first time, his other writings-journalism, travel stories, short fiction, memoir, and even a play-have been brought together in Escape Velocity: A Charles Portis Miscellany, his first new book in more than twenty years.

For those who care about literature or simply love a good laugh (or both), Charles Portis has long been one of America's most admired novelists. His 1968 novel True Grit is fixed in the contemporary canon, and four more have been hailed as comic masterpieces. Now, for the first time, his other writings--journalism, travel stories, short fiction, memoir, and even a play--have been brought together in Escape Velocity: A Charles Portis Miscellany, his first new book in more than twenty years.All the familiar Portis elements are here: picaresque adventures, deadpan humor, an expert eye for detail and keen ear for the spoken word, and encounters with oddball characters both real and imagined. The collection encompasses the breadth of his fifty-year writing career, from his gripping reportage of the civil rights movement for the New York Herald Tribune to a comic short story about the demise of journalism in the 21st century. New to even the most ardent fan is his three-act play, Delray's New Moon, performed onstage in 1996 and published here for the first time.Whether this is your first encounter with the world of Portis or a long-awaited return to it, you'll agree with critic Ron Rosenbaum--whose essay appears here alongside tributes by other writers--that Portis "will come to be regarded as the author of classics on the order of a twentieth-century Mark Twain, a writer who captures the soul of America."

Mustard Forgotten

In the world of Charles Portis' fiction, odd characters are a given, indeed a necessity. You wonder where he got the inspiration for some of those people. Now, thanks to "Escape Velocity: A Charles Portis Miscellany," you get some sense of an answer: from the very people that Portis was around, either as a reporter or in some other function.

The pieces in this collection go a long way towards making the case that Portis is one of the great men of letters in American literature post-1945, with a keen ear for sayings and characters that most other people might miss (or dismiss) entirely. The non-fiction pieces in particular are revelatory: Portis earned his stripes as a journalist, and here we see him covering the death of Elvis' mother while picking up on the nuances of the moment (how Elvis had to balance his private grief with his public obligations, not just to his fans but to the Army into which he was drafted). I was hesitant about the short fiction pieces: Portis' novels contain such fantastical moments that often times they need the space that a novel provides to give them weight, and I worried that short fiction might reveal the man behind the curtain, in a sense, as not being the same at the great novelist whose works I'd read and enjoyed previously. But not to fret: the short fiction, while not being up to the same standards as his longform work, is sparkling with intelligence and wit. I did skip over the play included in this volume, however (I do plan to return to it some day), as well as the long interview towards the end. I wanted to save some Portis for another day, as I've read all his novels and didn't want to necessarily come to the end of his published work.

The section I read first, actually, wasn't written by Portis at all: the appendix contains testimonials (essays, book reviews, etc.) about Portis and his work, by some famous fans. I heartily recommend it, as Portis is the most often-cited "neglected American novelist" of the recent past, and to such an extent that his status is more solid now than it was beforehand. All of his work (the novels, not just "True Grit" but lesser-known works like "The Dog of the South" and "Norwood") have been republished, and Portis has a stature in American literature not afforded to him prior to the turn of the century. The essays and reviews help give the neophyte Portis reader an appreciation for what his work has meant and will continue to mean as time goes on.

Charles Portis could have been Cormac McCarthy, (as Roy Blount Jr. says), but he'd rather be funny (and use quotation marks to seperate his dialogue from the other text, I should point out). Thank goodness that he did decide that years ago. He may be a recluse, but he's said plenty in his work (the novels and the pieces collected here). If you're already a fan, this is a welcome addition to your shelf. If you're a newbie, this might not be the place to start, but it doesn't hurt to help get a sense of what Charles Portis does. He does it very well, and he has done it often enough to be an American treasure.

doesnt Do You

Charles Portis has always had a small group of fans but after the early success of True Grit, most of the reading public lost track of him. When his all of his five novels were republished in the last few years, I was able to read them all and realize his subtle humor and marvelous characters, but I still didn't know much about the author. This collection of some of his early writing and reporting and a few short stories along with a play and an interview tell us more of his life as a writer, but I still don't know much of the private person which is disappointing. I would guess that he is a very self contained person who avoids the limelight and that is OK with me. The writing is uneven but gives you a good insight into his development as a writer

Nafyn

Whenever we become interested in an author, especially someone with skills as unique as Charles Portis, we find ourselves wondering how he became who he is. Escape Velocity is a chronological collection of Portis writings from his earliest newspaper work, through his professional work as an editor overseas, to fiction, drama, and articles focused on his personal interests as began to write for himself. One can witness in this collection, the development of his insight into character, situation, set and setting, and his finely tuned ear for dialogue. As readers, we are allowed to watch a genius construct his own world. This collection is a gift to us by it's editor, Jay Jennings, who had the long term focus to collect writings by Portis, and ultimately organize them into this work, for which I believe Portis fans will be eternally greatful.

Golden Lama

Charles Portis is perhaps our best-known unknown writer. I happen to think he ranks with Mark Twain as one of the greatest comedic writers America has ever produced. Like the editor of this collection, I too have tucked into a folder every bit of Portis' non-novelistic output that I've been able to find here and there over the years. It's great to have it now all packed into one tight volume. "Combinations of Jacksons" alone is worth the price of the book.