Charles Portis, author of the classic American novel
True Grit and other works of comic fiction, will soon release his first new book in more than 20 years.
Escape Velocity: A Charles Portis Miscellany will be published this fall by Butler Center Books, a division of the Central Arkansas Library System.
The book – which collects Portis's nonfiction and short stories, as well as a memoir and a play – spans his half-century-long writing career, covering his early journalism from the 1950s when he worked for several newspapers up to more recent magazine stories published in the
Atlantic and the
Oxford American. Known as a master of deadpan humor, Portis has seen his best-selling book
True Grit made into two award-winning films (in 1969, starring John Wayne, and in 2010, directed by the Coen brothers) and his four other novels become cult favorites.
Escape Velocity will bring together almost everything that Portis has written outside the novels, both never-before-published work and hard-to-find stories that fans have known about for years and that new readers will delight in discovering.
The official release date for
Escape Velocity: A Charles Portis Miscellany is October 1. The book will be available from local, national, and online booksellers. It may also be ordered through the distributor, the University of Arkansas Press, in Fayetteville (www.uapress.com; 800-626-0090).
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