Best known for his glorious comic novels—including the American classic True Grit—Charles Portis was also a prolific essayist, travel writer, and newspaper reporter. Now, for the first time, these writings—journalism, short fiction,
memoir, travel stories, and even a play—have been brought together in Escape Velocity: A Charles Portis Miscellany. The collection encompasses the breadth of Portis’s fifty-year writing career, covering topics as varied as road tripping in Baja,
Elvis’s visits to his aging mother, and his own boyhood in Arkansas. Also included in Escape Velocity are Portis’s three-act play Delray’s New Moon, “Damn!” a rare short story from 1957, and tributes by Donna Tartt, Wells Tower, Ron Rosenbaum,
Ed Park, and Roy Blount Jr. While fans of Charles Portis’s sly and distinctive humor, quirky characters, and keen ear for detail will be thrilled at this new addition to their libraries, Escape Velocity will also serve as an essential introduction to those not yet familiar with his work.
