I had not thought much about True Grit by Charles Portis (1968) until the Indianapolis Public Library and the Eiteljorg Museum gave away a free copy as part of a National Endowment for the Arts Big Read program in 2018 or 2019. I took a copy, added it to the Pile, and sadly, gave away my copy when I moved in 2021 because, only knowing about the 1969 John Wayne movie (which I never watched), I didn’t think I would ever read it.
But then the new facilitator for my longtime book group picked it for January 2024. And I found that the author Donna Tartt narrated the audiobook version, which was only 6 hours long.
I had no idea what I had been missing my entire life (it was published the year I was born!) Wow! It is set in 1878 and is the story of 14-year old Mattie Ross, U.S Marshal Rooster Cogburn, and Texas Ranger La Boeuf, on a quest in what was then Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) to avenge the killing of Mattie’s father by a drifter named Tom Chaney.
After Mattie finds out about the murder of her father, she leaves her mother and baby brother behind on the farm, and sets off alone to the city of Fort Smith, Arkansas, to find out what she can and find someone to help her find the killer. Mattie is the best character! She has the wisdom and business sense of someone far older, and does not conform to the ideas that society had at that time for women, especially young women. She does what needs to be done and drives a hard bargain in the process.
After asking around about a marshal to assist her, she settles on Rooster Cogburn, described as one of the meanest marshals, because he has “true grit” and she doesn’t believe he will abandon her cause. She handles her father’s business so that she has a way to pay Rooster, but she hopes he won’t be too drunk to undertake the journey. But there’s another problem. She meets Texas Ranger La Boeuf at her boardinghouse and finds out he is also pursuing Tom Chaney because of a Texas murder. It seems likely that La Boeuf and Rooster will join forces, and neither wants a 14-year old girl to accompany them on their quest.
It sounds so serious, and it is, but Portis has written Mattie with such humor and heart. She is single-minded in her focus on avenging her father’s murder. We find out at the end, that she is recalling these events as an elderly spinster, fifty years later, so we know that she survives.
It’s not perfect. There is some anti-fat bias in the description of Rooster being fat, as part of the description of him a slovenly drunkard, so that’s not great. And the portrayal of people of color, whether Black or Native American, is also typical of the time the story was set, so that’s also unfortunate. Rooster is ultimately the secondary hero of the story, which he did while being fat and a drunk, so that’s a positive. But Mattie is the true hero. I was impressed that it was written by a man, in 1968! I wonder how much the character of Mattie Ross did and how it was discussed at the time–did its publication help at all in progressing the second wave of feminism, as it was an instant bestseller and made into a movie the following year? I don’t know, but it would be an interesting analysis.
At any rate, if you’ve never read it, I highly recommend it, with the earlier caveats.
Reading While Fat 
