Out of the American Neon Desert of Roller Domes, chili parlors, The Grand Ole Opry, and girls who want "to live in a trailer and play records all night" comes ex-marine and troubadour Norwood Pratt. Sent on a mission to New York by Grady Fring, the Kredit King, Norwood has visions of "speeding across the country in a late model car, seeing all the sights." Instead, he gets involved in a wild journey that takes him in and out of stolen cars, freight trains, and buses. By the time he returns home to Ralph, Texas, Norwood has met his true love, Rita Lee, on a Trailways bus; befriended Edmund B. Ratner, the second shortest midget in show business and "the world’s smallest perfect fat man"; and helped Joann, "the chicken with a college education," realize her true potential in life. As with all of Portis’ fiction, the tone is cool, sympathetic, funny, and undeniably American.

The author of TRUE GRIT, Arkansas humorist Charles Portis wrote a handful of comic novels of the South, beginning in the 1960s, that have since gained a cult following but otherwise have attracted little attention. NORWOOD, the first of these, concerns the odyssey of a young rube named Norwood Pratt, who, tricked into driving stolen cars to New York, somehow makes it back home accompanied by a new true love, an educated chicken, and a fat British midget. All this unfolds with memorably drawn characters and a deadpan style. Barrett Whitener's crisp diction, expressiveness, and facility with a Southern accent serve him well here. He has an appropriately light touch and brisk pace. We can forgive his few bad line readings, but we wish he had a better grasp of the female characters. Y.R. (c) AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine