Norwood by Charles Portis

You'll never read a funnier writer

Charles Portis is the thoughtful kind of novelist who, having published only five, makes it easy for the reader to be a completist. He was also thoughtful enough to make them all fun and worthwhile to read. True Grit (1968) was his most famous but Norwood (1966) was the first. The successful movie adaptation of True Grit in 1969 led to an unsuccessful and unfaithful movie version of Norwood a year later. Do yourself a favor and avoid it at all costs.

Review

Norwood begins with Norwood Pratt's hardship discharge from the Marines at Fort Pendleton in California. His father died and there was no one to look after Norwood's sister Vernell. On his bus trip back to Ralph, Texas, kindhearted Norwood befriends a couple who are traveling with their baby and invites them to stay at his place for a while. The next morning, Norwood discovers that the couple left during the night with the television, a shotgun, and two towels. How they got out of town with the TV is anyone's guess.

Vernell is a "heavy, sleepy girl with bad posture." While Norwood takes up his old job at the Nipper service station, Vernell mopes around the house. Eventually getting tired of having grimy stuff fall in his face and hair while greasing trucks, Norwood pushes Vernell to carry her own weight by getting a job waitressing at the local coffee shop. That backfires on Norwood when Vernell marries a disabled vet named Bill Bird who hangs out at the coffee shop all day reading Grit and Parade and brings him home to live with them. The laugh-out-loud conversation between Bill and Vernell at the New Ralph Hotel Coffee Shop is as good as anything Twain ever wrote.

Norwood owns a cheap guitar, knows how to play three or four chords, and is a walking almanac of information about country music. His life's ambition is to get over to Shreveport and make it big on the Louisiana Hayride radio show. One night, by chance, outside the roller rink he meets Grady Fring, insurance salesman, car salesman, self-proclaimed Kredit King, and talent scout, among many, many other endeavors. Norwood and Grady share an interest in watching the girls skate. Fjring explains that he is "connected with a New Orleans talent agency and that part of my work takes me around to many... highway institutions." Always helpful, Norwood replies, "That Creswell girl is a good skater." Fring offers further elucidation: "You will understand, Norwood, I am not necessarily looking for skating skills."

Eventually, Fring talks Norwood into doing a job for him, a simple job that will pay well. Norwood is to drive a car to New York, where Fring says that he can get a better price for it than he can locally. When he shows up for the job, Norwood discovers that he will also be towing a second car as well as taking along a passenger -- a young woman who is one of the "talents" Fring has identified. Thus begins the road trip from Hell. Along the way, Norwood will befriend a midget who got fired for getting too fat, rescue a rooster with a superior intellect, and meet his possible future wife. And then he has to get back.

Does Norwood ever make it onto the Louisiana Hayride? I will leave that for you to find out. But here's a hint: the book is not a stupid Hollywood movie starring Glen Campbell. You can start with this book or with any other (though Gringos is my personal least favorite), but you gotta read Charles Portis.