The quest, journey, chase, and picaresque adventure all lie behind Portis's fictional methods. His technique is as old as Homer's and as new as Barry Hannah's or John Barth's, for Portis characters must be up and going.

Sometimes they must be up and going after someone else, hence the chase motif, something popularized by Western novels and movies. A quest for revenge and a chase to find Tom Chaney and the bandit outlaws he teams up with give True Grit its structural form.

Picaresque adventure provides the structure of Norwood and Dog of the South. Although picaresque elements help to give form to Masters of Atlantis, Portis uses a more complex structure in that work, tracing a conflict and then an uncertain resolution among various factions of American Gnomonism. A combined interplay of characters at a Mexico hotel and a journey by river to ancient Mayan sites provide...