Book of the Week: Charles Portis' "True Grit"

I've been meaning to read True Grit ever since George Pelecanos recommended it a few years back, but I didn't get around to it until now. (With all the attention being given to the new Coen Brothers film, it seemed the ideal time.) The story will likely be familiar to those readers who are fans of movie Westerns: Mattie Ross, a young girl in late-19th century Arkansas, hires Rooster Cogburn, a Marshall and a drunk, to find the man who murdered her father. The story is a simple one, but the beauty of the book is in the details. True Grit is a masterpiece of style and voice. Told from the first-person POV of Mattie, Portis' novel captures the grit of life on the frontier as seen through the eyes of its remarkable narrator. It's one of the most entertaining and impressive novels I've read in quite a while. True Grit makes an excellent finale to my annual reading, closing out a year that began with Larry McMurtry's brilliant Lonesome Dove -- no finer pair of bookends could be found.