Charles Portis

In the 1870s, young Mattie Ross learns that her beloved father was gunned down by his former handyman. But even though this gutsy 14-year-old is seeking vengeance, she is smart enough to figure out she can't go alone after a desperado who's holed up in Indian territory. With some fast-talking, she convinces mean, one-eyed US Marshal "Rooster" Cogburn into going after the despicable outlaw with her.

Jimmy Burns is an expatriate 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.†?...

Collected here in Escape Velocity, edited by Jay Jennings, is his "miscellany" journalism, short fiction, memoir, and even the play Delray's New Moon, published for the first time in this volume. Portis covers topics as varied as the civil rights movement, road tripping in Baja, and Elvis' s visits to his aging mother for publications such as the New York Herald Tribune and Saturday Evening Post. Fans of Portis's droll Southern humor and quirky characters...

Mattie Ross is determined to avenge her father's blood by capturing Tom Chaney, the man who shot and killed him for two pieces of gold. Just fourteen, she enlists the help of Rooster Cogburn, a one-eyed, trigger-happy U.S. Marshal with an affinity for drinking, and hardened Texas Ranger LaBoeuf to track the fleeing Chaney. Despite their differences, their ruthless determination leads them on a perilous adventure that can only have one outcome: retribution....