I generally hate the construction "a writer's writer" (just what the fuck does that mean, exactly, can anyone explain?) but in the case of Charles Portis, I can almost let it go. The Boston Globe genuflects.
For starters, Portis is funny. Roy Blount Jr., who used to give away copies of Portis's novels to younger writers, has compared him to Mark Twain. He's right, certainly in terms of the two authors' wonderfully understated prose. When I read -- I suppose I should claim "reread" -- "Huckleberry Finn" to one of my sons a few years ago, I marveled at how the un-showy words rolled off the page. A readers' writer, to be sure. Portis also has the trademark empathy for lost souls that resonates with writers. If we were found souls, we wouldn't be writing. It is ironic that Portis himself has become a cult figure, because he understands our need to form insular microreligions to keep sane. His accessible 1985 novel, "Masters of Atlantis," paints this picture in broad strokes.
Pay special attention to Norwood.
I can help.
'Writer's writer' is a designation that suggests that the designee is a writer who other writers admire and freqently cite as being instructive, influential or insprirational. It is not employed in the way 'a man's man' is —but is probably best defined ostensively.
Universally, Alice Munro; To a certain generation of writers, Richard Yates. Maybe William Gass.
The phrase can frequently be interchangably used in place of 'underappreciated' (talk about a troublesome notion): Fred Busch,Percival Everett, Jim Shepard, Joyce Carol Oates, Oscar Hijuelos, Ron Carlson—you get the idea.
Does this help?
Posted by: Birnbaum | March 10, 2004 at 11:37 AM
You are, as always, helpful and lucid.
I confess I was being a tad sarcastic - my understanding of the term meshes with yours. But what has always troubled is some underlying sense of ... apartness, if you will. As though that which a writer might find especially worthy is different than that which a reader might, and vice versa.
It's an expression that always pushes me back to the old saw, "good writing is good writing."
A bit reductive, but comforting.
Posted by: TEV | March 10, 2004 at 04:48 PM