Writers reflect on Charles Portis

He was the real thing, but he was modest about it. An awestruck fan meeting him by chance in a Little Rock bar named the Faded Rose gushed at him, praising him as a great American writer. Portis shrugged saying, “I’m not even the best writer in this bar.”

All the main characters in “literature” were from London and New York and St. Petersburg, but the book with the character from Little Rock was the funniest book you’d ever read, including your previous funniest book, Lucky Jim. And because Little Rock is little, your parents lived in the same apartment complex as this writer, and so you had his address.

Gathering Charles Portis’s many contributions to the Oxford American

Following the death of the this “least-known great writer,” we’re revisiting his life and work.