True Grit

 True Grit by Charles Portis

Originally published in 1968, this publication 2010

by The Overlook Press, New York

Genre: Western

Pages: 235

Setting: Arkansas

Time Period: 1870s

I read this book for the first time two weeks ago, and oddly, could not even remember the narrator's name when I sat down to write this. It is especially odd because Mattie, who's tale this is, is one of the strongest woman protagonist I have ever read and she's only 14 when the events occurred. 

Mattie's father was murdered by a hired hand while the two were 70 miles away in a town, Fort Smith, to look at some ponies. Mattie leaves her mother and two younger siblings at their farm and travels alone to Fort Smith to have her father's remains shipped back by train. Or so she told her mother and the family's lawyer that was her purpose. What she really wants is justice - the murderer caught. And if not caught? Killed wouldn't be a bad option either. Mattie knows she can't find the murderer herself, so she decides to hire someone to find the murderer. She chooses a middle-aged one-eyed lawman Rooster Cogburn who has a shady past, and reputation, for the job as she feels he has "grit". She also makes it clear that she will be going along on the quest to supervise and assist.

The whole story takes place within a few weeks and Mattie tells it when she is an old woman. However, the crisp descriptions of the landscape, people and events would have the reader wonder if things really happened the way they are depicted if it weren't for the somewhat pious and matter of fact tone the narrator uses. To me, Mattie is the one that embodies the title of having "true grit". It is a interesting and very short book - full of revenge, justice, and adventure.

Read-a-likes (from NoveList):

The Outcasts by Kathleen Kent
Butch Cassidy by William W. Johnstone
The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt