True Grit by Charles Portis

True Grit by Charles Portis, 235 pages.

Portis's 1968 classic has been made into two great movies now, and the book itself has aged well. Mattie Ross is fourteen, stiff, formal, and fearless. She does not suffer fools and she has a strong sense of justice and will not be cheated out of anything, not her share of the covers in a shared bed at the boardinghouse, not the price her late father paid for a string of ponies, and most certainly not vengeance on Tom Chaney, the coward who shot down her father in Fort Smith, Arkansas.
By the time Mattie gets to Fort Smith, Chaney has taken off, riding her father's horse, leaving Arkansas and heading into the Oklahoma territory. Mattie seeks help from a U.S. Marshall, Rooster Cogburn, former confederate raider, former road agent, constant drinker, and possessor of the characteristic from which the book takes its name. They are joined in the hunt by a Texas Ranger who is seeking Chaney for the killing of another man. The book is Matties stubborn and honest reflection of what she saw and did at that time, and it all feels remarkably true. A classic book-makes me want to read the rest of Portis's work.
We have the book and we have both movies at UCPL, so check them out!