Norwood, #1 New York Times bestselling author Charles Portis’s first novel, displayed right out of the gate the wit, style, and singular voice that made him one of our great American writers.
“A great American deadpan comedy. . . . Norwood, like a belt of whiskey, cleared my sinuses right up.” ––Slate
Out of the Neon Desert of Roller Dromes, chili parlors, the Grand Ole Opry, and girls who want “to live in a trailer and play records all night” comes ex-marine and troubadour Norwood Pratt. Sent on a mission to New York by Grady Fring, the Kredit King, Norwood has visions of “speeding across the country in a late model car, seeing all the sights.”
By the time he returns home to Ralph, Texas, Norwood has met his true love, Rita Lee, on a Trailway bus; befriended Edmund B. Ratner, the self-described “world’s smallest perfect man”; and helped Joann, “the chicken with a college education,” realize her true potential in life.
As with all of Portis’s fiction, the tone is cool, sympathetic, funny, and undeniably American.
“Flawless . . . Norwood is a road novel as indispensable as On the Road itself.” —Ed Park, Believer
Praise
"This relaxed, funny first novel about an engaging young man in peculiar states of affairs features Norwood Pratt…a filling station attendant with a vague ambition to become a star on the Louisiana Hayride… Norwood is just simple enough to be believable and the story has just the right brand of humor. Laughable. Likable.”
—Kirkus
“A comic masterpiece… a rollicking road trip novel about personal growth and the process of expanding one’s worldview.”
—Kenyon Review
“Delightfully original… orchestrates some of the tinnier strains of today’s America into a cool little fugue.”
—New York Times
