Bibliographic Description
85.08.W013: Portis – Norwood
CHARLES PORTIS | [rule 3.4 cm] | NORWOOD | [rule 3.4 cm] | VINTAGE CONTEMPORARIES | VINTAGE BOOKS • A DIVISION OF RANDOM HOUSE • NEW YORK
First Vintage Books Edition, August 1985
96 leaves, pp. 1-6 7-190 [2]
Contents: 1 blurbs and author photo, 2 “ALSO AVAILABLE IN VINTAGE CONTEMPORARIES”, 3 title, 4 imprint, 5 dedication, 6 blank, 7-190 Norwood, χ1a blank, χ1b about the author.
Cover design by Lorraine Louie; cover illustration by Rick Lovell; interior author photo by Jonathan Portis.
Copyright: ©1966. ISBN: 0-394-72931-5. Price: $5.95. Norwood was first published by Simon & Schuster, 1966.
Copies: JDP 1.1 (presumed)
Blurbs
- (front cover) Delightfully original…Norwood travels the same territory as Humber Humbert: the neon desert invested with totems of mid-century America. – The New York Times Book Review
- Norwood is a road-novel belonging to Norwood Pratt, an amiable young ex-Marine who works at a filling station in Ralph, Texas, and dreams about fame and fortune in what he calls hillbilly music. But when he decides to collect a $70 debt from an old Marine buddy, now in New York, his real adventures begin. Norwood finds a wife on the bus and encounters, among others, the second shortest midget in show business and Grady Fring the Kredit King, not to mention a certain Joann The Wonder Hen, The College Educated Chicken.
- Exaggerated naturalism in the tradition of Huckleberry Finn. – The Boston Globe
- A comedy of perception, brilliantly concise….Portis depicts the subculture of American life as well as any writer since Ring Lardner. – The New York Herald Tribune
- Portis is the heir apparent to the tradition of Mark Twain. – Texas Monthly
- Portis populates his exotic landscape with odd but clearly homespun American types, and in his dialogue he has caught to perfection the special intonations of American vocal chords, the motley concerns—ranging from eternal salvation to a quick buck—that occupy the American soul….If it weren’t so darned funny, it would be a tragedy. – The Washington Post