His writing made Charles Portis remarkable.

Avoiding the spotlight doesn’t make you a recluse

PUBLICITY-shy. That’s the word the late former New York Times civil rights reporter Roy Reed used to describe fellow Arkansan Charles Portis.

How right he was. Mr. Portis died Monday, leaving this life the same as he lived it: without fanfare.

Many headlines about the deaths of famous people bring a “huh” or “oh, man.” But Mr. Portis’ brought pain.

It’s inevitable that upon hearing of his death, most folks will recall how much they loved True Grit. Why not? It’s a fantastic piece of literature (and a couple pieces of solid cinema). But there was so much more to this Arkansas legend than the creation of Rooster Cogburn and Mattie Ross.

This favorite writer of so many—and not just locally—was born in El Dorado and died in Little

Rock, an Arkie through and through. He served as a Marine in the Korean

War, and once upon a time wrote for the Arkansas Gazette. He also worked as a journalist in New York City and London. The man got around, but must have concluded that his original home was the best fit.

Mr. Portis’ first work, published in 1966, is a humorous novel called Norwood, about a Southern man who travels to New York and back on a wild adventure to collect some money owed to him. First jump out of the chute, the novelist established himself a master of dialogue and conversation. The scene in which Norwood throws the bag of flour off the train, and it smacks a guy in the face, cannot be forgotten once you’ve read it.

In 1968, Mr. Portis started publishing True Grit as a three-part serial in The Saturday Evening Post. For young’uns who don’t know, a serial is a long story published in smaller increments. (It’s how Stephen King’s The Green Mile was originally published.)

True Grit is the work so many remember, and it’s ultimately what brought Mr. Portis most of his fame. It was adapted into two movies and ultimately led to folks trying to pigeonhole him as a “western” writer. Apparently he didn’t care much for that.

But the story of a 14-year-old girl trying to track down her father’s killer with the help of a U.S. marshal and a Texas Ranger struck a chord. It earned Mr. Portis a “modest yet devoted readership,” according to Mr. Reed.

And everyone can picture the iconic scene, “Fill your hands, you son of a bitch!” Or the rattlesnakes. Watch out for the rattlesnakes!

A friend is bringing us his copy of 1979’s The Dog of the South so we can read that one. But perhaps the most bizarre story we’ve enjoyed by this writer is 1985’s Masters of Atlantis, in which a mysterious beggar bestows a book of supposed secrets from the lost city of Atlantis to the main character, Lamar Jimmerson.

Lamar then returns to America and builds this astounding cult using the book’s secrets. He scams a lot of money from people all over the country with the pseudoscience of his secretive texts. It’s nothing short of a wacky adventure, the type we’ve come to love reading from Mr. Portis.

When we’re done with The Dog of the South, all that’ll remain on our reading list from the author is 1991’s Gringos.

Mr. Portis had a short list of works, but it was enough to win him a cult following. And yet, for having such a dedicated audience, the man made no bother to attract attention. It’s one of the most refreshing things about him. In this day and age, no less.

Perhaps the best line in Mr. Reed’s obituary for Mr. Portis is, although he shied away from photographers, the novelist did not like being known as a recluse like J.D. Salinger. As the man plainly pointed out, he was in the Little Rock phone book.

And that describes Mr. Portis at his core, a man with the exceptional ability to point things out, matter of factly—something you already knew, even if you haven’t said it. It’s the mark of a good writer. And we’re jealous as hell.

ONE OF the more remarkable realizations we came across in other obituaries for the novelist were how he almost seemed to become allergic to journalists after his own stint in the field. (Who can blame him?)

After spending years intruding on the lives of others, Mr. Portis abruptly decided he would write fiction and avoid most reporters who came a-calling. The AP obituary said he became an ordinary man, driving around Little Rock in a pickup and enjoying the occasional beer. Once in a while, he’d write back to a reader who had sent him a letter.

In most regards, Mr. Portis seemed a conventional man with the remarkable ability to put the world around us into words we were not only able to understand, but were eager to do so. He didn’t try to impress readers with flashy prose. His writing was plain but respectful, without any intention of condescension.

Our novelist watched the world around him and quietly listened to the people in it. Then he crafted offbeat tales to re-insert the very people he observed earlier, giving them new homes and meanings.

If one takes away nothing else from Mr. Portis’ life, perhaps it’s to simply learn to be a decisive person of action. Mr. Portis decided to enlist, against his father’s wishes, to serve in Korea. And he did. He decided to earn a degree in journalism. And he did. He decided to become a newspaperman. And he did. He decided to write fiction. And he did.

To his family, we wish you peace and memories. And to his readers, make sure you check out all of his novels. He wasn’t a western writer.