A review by radballen
Norwood by Charles Portis

5.0

Phenomenal. I don't really know what to say. I've been struggling to find a novel lately that completely captured my attention and pulled me fully into its world. This one did the trick. Norwood hooked me from the first page and never let go. The characters are quirky without being stupidly over the top. The dialogue is wonderfully Southern without being overwrought. It's a perfect little novel you really could read in a single sitting. It took me two sittings.

One thing that struck me about this novel I must say is its prodigious yet fascinatingly casual use of the 'n-word' for a book published in 1966. I nkow the book is set in the mid-1950s, but I still found it to be a bold (but to my mind certainly not racist) move during the ascendancy of the Black Power movement. It certainly would have been the way these characters would have talked--and it's fascinating to see the moments when certain characters stray from the word. I'm trying to imagine this book on a reader's nightstand with Stokely Carmichael on the evening news. Maybe it didn't even register at the time, but I have to say it struck me in its historical context of a literary book from the mid-1960s.

Highest recommendation. Charles Portis is a badass. Please write another book.