True Grit

True Grit (1968) by acclaimed western writer Charles Portis was an instant bestseller, adapted to a 1969 movie featuring John Wayne, and in 2010, an academy award-winning film directed by the Cohen brothers. Acclaimed author Donna Tartt narrated the audiobook version in 2006. Portis is also known for writing Norwood (1966), his first novel about a young man of the same name who has wacky adventures around New York before returning to his home in Texas.

Portis has been lauded for applying a comic style to the traditional western novel. In True Grit, his characters are all flawed, and are presented with a deadpan humor. His major themes include loyalty to family and friends, perseverance despite all obstacles, and respect for justice. The novel has a plain, straight-forward style typical of a western, but with several unexpected turns that makes this novel an American classic.

Written in first person, the protagonist, Mattie Ross, looks back at her fourteenth year when her father, Frank Ross, was murdered by a craven man named Tom Chaney. Mattie, set on revenge, leaves her hometown in Arkansas to find and kill Chaney. To help assist her revenge, Mattie hires Marshal Reuben J. "Rooster" Cogburn (referred to as ‘Rooster’ or ‘Cogburn’), the most ruthless U.S. Marshall she can find. Along with a Texas Ranger named LaBoeuf, the trio follow Tom Chaney into sparsely populated Indian-American lands.



When the story begins, Mattie is an old, unmarried woman. The community admires her for her intelligence and independence. The story she tells is set “in the last quarter of the nineteenth century”; textual clues suggest it was around 1885.

Mattie says that Chaney worked on her family farm as a farmhand; he was not any good at his job. Her father, she thinks, hired him out of pity. She calls Chaney white trash to his face.

One day, Frank and Chaney visit Fort Smith, seventy miles away from their town of Dardanelle, to buy a horse. Frank spends $150 dollars on the horse. Mattie loves horses and Frank saves money because of her advice.



Riding back, Chaney blows all of his paycheck on drinking and gambling. Chaney tells Frank he will get his money back by force, and Frank tries to stop what he knows will only end poorly for Chaney. Chaney shoots Frank and steals the remaining $150, as well as two pieces of gold that Frank always had on his person.

Mattie takes a train to Fort Smith to take care of her father’s body and to find his killer. Realizing she can recruit more government officials to help catch her father’s murderer, Mattie finds the toughest official in Fort Smith, Arkansas. Rooster Cogburn is overweight, often drunk, and ready to pull his pistol out on anyone. Despite this, Mattie considers him perfect for the job because he has strength of character, or “true grit.”

Cogburn, a former confederate soldier, agrees to help Mattie after she offers to pay him. Enroute to Chaney, the two run into LaBoeuf (pronounced lebeef). He is a Texas Ranger on the hunt for Chaney for killing a state senator and the senator’s dog; if he brings back Chaney dead or alive he will receive a cash reward.



Cogburn and LaBoeuf initially dislike each other. Cogburn is older, gruffer, and mocks the Rangers; LaBoeuf is proud, young, and well-groomed. But after talking long enough, they realize that the other has skills or information that can led them to Chaney. Cogburn and LaBoeuf try to ditch Mattie on multiple occasions, but she always finds a way back to them. At one point, LaBoeuf goes so far as to spank Mattie. Eventually, Cogburn decides that she has proven herself and can continue with their hunt of Chaney through the Choctaw Nation (modern day Oklahoma).

They ask around Fort Smith if anyone has seen a man with a noticeable dark mark on his face (this is one of Chaney’s scars, which he received after a man shot him in the face and the gunpowder never was removed). The trio eventually learn that Chaney has joined a gang of outlaws led by “Lucky” Ned Pepper. They also learn that Pepper plans to rob a train, Chaney will be with him, and they know where he will be taking the loot.

Hiding in a hut, the trio sees Lucky Ned Pepper and his gang approaching. LaBoeuf shoots at Pepper prematurely. He ends up killing Pepper’s horse, but lets Pepper and his gang escape.



Mattie and company pursue Pepper to his stronghold in the “Winding Stairs Mountains.” At night, they camp among the rocky terrain. Then in the morning, while Mattie is looking for water, she runs directly into Chaney. She yells at him to come with her, but he laughs; she shoots him in the side, but it is not enough to stop Chaney from restraining her.

LaBoeuf and Cogburn arrive on the scene at the same time as Ned Pepper and his gang. The gang agrees not to harm Mattie if the two officials leave. They agree to leave.

Pepper and his gang drift on to other business, and tell Chaney to take Mattie to some safe place after sunset. But Chaney does not. He is about to throw her into a snakepit when LaBoeuf comes to her rescue. At the same time, Cogburn has cut off Pepper and his gang’s retreat. There’s a major shootout; Lucky Ned Pepper and his gang die.



While LaBoeuf is celebrating his capture of Chaney, Chaney hits his skull with a giant rock. Mattie shoots Chaney in the head with her father’s “Colt’s Dragoon,” but the ricochet from the gun throws her back into the snakepit. While Chaney is laughing about her fate, Cogburn appears and smashes Chaney’s head in with a rock.

LaBoeuf recovers from the assault, and helps Cogburn throw Chaney into the snake pit. Unfortunately, the body lands on an old skeleton that was housing a lot of sleeping snakes. Agitated, the snakes attack everything, including Mattie. Before Cogburn and LaBoeuf can rescue Mattie, her left arm is bitten. They rush her to the hospital, but her left arm still has to be amputated.

The story returns to the present, which is fifty years later. Mattie is by now a hugely successful businesswoman. She never saw Cogburn again; when she tried to visit him last she learned he had died only a few days before. She never saw LaBoeuf again either, but hopes that he will read her story and they can reconnect.