Thirteen Moons

by Charles Frazier

2 Book Set By Charles Frazier; Cold Mountain; Thirteen Moons.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Historical, Native American, Book Club, Audiobook, Novels

500 pages, Paperback

First published October 3, 2006

About the author

Charles Frazier is an award-winning author of American historical fiction. His literary corpus, to date, is comprised of three New York Times best selling novels: Nightwoods (2011), Thirteen Moons (2006), and Cold Mountain (1997) - winner of the National Book Award for Fiction.


Librarian Note: There are multiple authors in the goodreads database with this name. more info here.

Reviews

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just wrote a lengthy review of this excellent book and apparently GoodReads was having server problems just as I was submitting it.

So...I don't have the stomach to type all that out again, so kindly believe me when I tell you that Thirteen Moons is a tremendous accomplishment. Sure, it may be a somewhat cliched "going native" story, but the narrative is actually based on the life of the historical figure William Holland Thomas (his name has been changed to William Cooper in the novel). Plus Charles Frazier is such an amazing storyteller the plot itself is more or less unimportant.

This is one of the finest books I've read in a long time. I was sad to finish it because I know it will be quite a while before I find a book of this quality again. It was nine years between Cold Mountain and Thirteen Moons; I can only hope that Charles Frazier's next novel will not require such a wait.

[Erica Verrillo · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I started this book, I felt some trepidation. I didn't think that Frazier could top Cold Mountain. As it turned out, he didn't have to. Will's story was a whole new world, one which completely captivated me. It's been months now since I finished the book, and I can still remember all the characters - Will, Claire, Bear - as vividly as if I'd known them for years.

Charles Frazier, whether or not you like his subject matter, has what all novelists strive for and what very few achieve: the ability to invent a world and put you smack dab in the middle of it. He can create characters with a stroke of the pen, make you feel with them, make you laugh with them, make you cry with them. He describes nature with such intensity that you will read those passages over and over again. And when the book ends you will grieve for the loss of the world Frazier has created. In short, Frazier has the Gift. And we are the lucky recipients of it.

Very few serious writers survive the publishing business, which tends to favor books with short, but lucrative, shelf lives. In this brave new world we live in, it seems literary ideas are as disposable as paper napkins. But in spite of the absurdities produced by economic short-sightedness, I have every confidence that Frazier's Thirteen Moons will be read for decades to come for its beauty, its honesty and for its genuine heartfelt emotion.

[Lori Keeton · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is no doubt that Charles Frazier can write. He has a gorgeous way of putting words together that stuns and mesmerizes. It is a true gift. His first novel, Cold Mountain, managed to gut me emotionally and wound up on my favorites shelf. In his second novel, Thirteen Moons, Frazier takes on an astronomical and sweeping story of a man at the end of his life who looks back and tells his story. His memories come to life as he reveals how he came to the land of the Cherokee at age 12 bound into servitude to manage a trading post in this remote area. What unfolds is an epic passage of time narrative that allows the reader an up close and personal look into one man’s adventures, passions, romances, accomplishments and failures.

I have periods where everything I ever encountered—grass and trees, music, the taste of food, the way people move, the miracle of colors, even my own worn thoughts—seems luminous and razor-cut in clarity, exactly like the whole world seemed to me at seventeen. What a gift at this late date. Memories from deep into the last century come blowing through me and I can hardly stand against their force. We all reach a point where we would like to draw a line across time and declare everything on the far side of null. Shed our past life like a pair of wet and muddy trousers, just roll their heavy clinging fabric down our legs and step away. We also reach a point where we would give the rest of our withering days for the month of July in our seventeenth year. But no thread of Ariadne exists to lead us back there.

Around 1820, Will Cooper takes an arduous journey through the wilderness in the mountains of North Carolina to get to his new home on the edge of the Cherokee territory. He is a lover of books and begins keeping a journal - a behavior he maintains throughout his long life. He befriends a local chief named Bear who adopts him as his own. Bear is a gentle man who lives the traditional, old ways. Will learns to speak the language and to respect the lifestyle of his new father figure’s people. His trading post prospers with his negotiation and bargaining skills. Will falls for a beautiful young girl, Claire whom he briefly won in a poker game against Featherstone, a red-headed plantation owning Cherokee who can pass as white because of his Scottish roots. Featherstone makes an impact on Will’s life in a different way than Bear.

When the threat of removal from their homeland by President Andrew Jackson is forced upon them, Will Cooper uses his cunning intellect and charm to fight against the government order. The Cherokee reaction is varied as some fight back, others give up and try to assimilate. Will and Bear begin buying up as much land as they can holding deeds believing this will protect their tribe. As a lawyer, Will spends time in Washington as the tribe’s spokesperson to fight for their case.

Frazier has packed in so much rich history, insight and mountainous beauty into a century of change in one man’s remarkable life. There is so much that one small review like mine could never do all of it justice. In the end, this is a lament about the loss of a way of life and it is evident that Will Copper’s love for Claire and the Cherokee are what drive his life. It is worth the time to sit back and allow the elder Will Cooper to recount his life as you marvel at the huge endeavor that is Thirteen Moons.

[Libby · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 rounded up. In ‘Thirteen Moons’ by Charles Frazier, I felt submerged into the natural environment; his eloquent descriptions of wooded forests, mountain vistas, laurel thickets, and the animals that live therein evoke strong emotions, because for me it is familiar. My growing up years were filled with hikes and picnics in the North Carolina woods. That beautiful natural world exists still, although not in the fullness or lushness of the time period of this novel. It is land where once the Native Americans lived and freely traveled. By the 1830’s things had changed dramatically for American Indians. Then President, Andrew Jackson, signed an Indian Removal policy which was to force all Indians to move west. No Indians were to be allowed to stay east of the Mississippi.

What happens when an orphan white boy, bound to indentured service as a clerk at a trading post, is adopted by a Cherokee chief known as Bear? Sold into service, at age twelve, by his aunt and uncle, Will Cooper makes an impossible journey on horseback, to the trading post where he will clerk. With no family to speak of, Will is taken under Bear’s wing, and folded into the arms of the mountains and the lifestyle of the Indian people who live there. An intelligent boy with an aptitude for reading, he becomes infused with Native teachings and lore.

Frazier very skillfully layers his complex characters. Bear has seen the hard struggle ahead for his people and does everything in his power to ensure their survival on the very land where they now live. Will, thoroughly flawed, is brought into Bear’s struggle; the struggle to hold onto the land. The Indians had never owned land before. It had been free to all of them; they used what they needed. Now, everything has changed. Historically, Frazier bases his story on the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians that evaded removal in the 1830’s.

Will’s love interest, Claire, is also a complicated character, but her complexity is best left as a mystery. I love the way that Frazier writes about their young love, their innocence and naivety. The novel is written as Cooper narrates from an old age. This scene is where Will and Claire are riding Waverly, Will’s beautiful bay horse, at full speed.

“Back then there was nothing on the face of the earth faster than a fine horse at full gallop. Not one brute machine could outstrip it. In the places where they had railways, it could take four hours to go forty-five miles, at least so said Featherstone on the basis of a recent trip to Georgia. We were going multiples of that mechanic speed, ripping the night right down the middle in what now seems to me a last glorious expression of a dying world.”

For me, that illuminates what Frazier has done in this novel; he has given expression to that past world, the dying world of the Native Americans, and a way of life most of us can never know, but that our ancestors may have understood. He pays homage to that time of transition and shows the sins of civilization. Frazier shows the wonder of civilization as well, but on balance the world of nature, while portrayed as often harsh is more often majestic, always preferable, always home. Highly recommended.

[Connie G · Rating 4 out of 5]

Does overwhelming change, the annihilation of all you know, create an intensity of memory that would not have existed otherwise? When all you know is lost and gone forever, does it become sweeter in the mind? Does it make you want to let go or hold on even tighter?

In his ninth decade, Will Cooper thinks back on his life in the mountains of the Cherokee country. Orphaned, and then sold into indentured servitude by his aunt and uncle, twelve-year-old Will traveled to run a remote trading post in 19th Century North Carolina. The bright boy had a flair for language, and soon was able to converse with his Cherokee customers. The local Cherokee chief, Bear, became an adoptive father to Will, and he was accepted as an adopted member of the tribe.

The emotional need for a place to call home is a theme that runs through the tale. Will's favorite horse Waverley, his adoptive father Bear, and the beautiful Claire Featherstone were important to the young man. Thoughts of his complicated relationship with Claire haunt Will throughout his life.

Will became a self-taught lawyer, and helped Bear and a group of Cherokees acquire land during the Indian removal by the Federal government. Others were forced to leave their Native land, walking the Trail of Tears, during President Andrew Jackson's administration. Will chronicles a series of adventures--and misadventures--at home in the South, while arguing for the Cherokees in Washington DC, and while traveling in the West. Will gained and lost a fortune, then gained a second one when the railroads pushed through the mountains.

Time for the Cherokees follows the thirteen moons of the year. Appreciation of the beauty of the natural world, and a love of the Cherokee traditions fill the pages. Charles Frazier's lovely writing is a tribute to the Native tribe.

And, big or small, whatever the season, the moons had begun to streak across the graphite bowl of sky at a harder pace in the later years. Alarming, really, how all the wheels of the world--the days and nights, the thirteen moons, the four seasons, and the great singular round of the year itself--begin spinning faster and faster the closer we get to the Nightland. We're called to it and it pulls us. And the weaker we become, the harder and faster it pulls.

[Chrissie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thirteen Moons by Charles Frazier is a book of historical fiction based on the life of William Holland Thomas (1805 - 1893). Thomas became the Principal Chief of the East Band of Cherokee Indians, the only White to ever hold such a position. In the book, William Holland Thomas goes under the name of Will Cooper and is the prime protagonist.

Will, an elderly man at the opening of the book, recounts his life story, from childhood to old age. Orphaned at a young age, Featherstone and Bear, become father-figures to Will. He is white. They are Cherokee. Will is adopted by one and falls in love with……. No, I cannot explain this without giving too much away.

The book is a fictionalized retelling of William Holland Thomas’ life. It is also a love story, although this part is purely fictional. It is also a telling of the “Trail of Tears”, the forced relocation of Cherokees from North Carolina, following the 1830 Indian Removal Act.

On completion of the book, of course, the first thing I had to do was to read about William Holland Thomas on Wiki. Yep, he is there in full detail, and it is simple to check out what is fact and what fiction.

How events are drawn were too coincidental for me. This starts right from the beginning, when at the age of twelve Will manages to beat older men at cards. Then, having lost the map he is to follow, he stumbles upon the trading post where he has been indentured to work as a clerk. The love affair between Will and Claire, well, how this is drawn, is not believable either. The central events of the tale are dictated by events in Thomas’ life, but the minute Frazier departs from facts, venturing into imagined territory, I sensed this, and the story no longer rang true to me. In addition, the story is too long and drawn out.

The writing, this is exceptional, and this is why I still enjoyed the book. Frazier captures wonderfully the language and the thoughts of an elderly Southern man. A man of the 1800s. Will’s thoughts and how such a man might tell of his life feel utterly genuine to me. Frazier also brilliantly describes nature. He captures mood and dialogues magnificently.

I really like the writing but not how the events unfold.

The audiobook I listened to is narrated by John Chancer. It is extremely well done. Chancer wonderfully captures the feel of the man drawn by Frazier’s words. He uses different intonations for male and female characters, and he does both well. The speed is perfect. I have given the narration five stars.

[Tessa Nadir · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sa ne intoarcem putin in copilarie... daca ati citit cu placere cand erati mici "Winnetou" sau "Ultimul mohican" trebuie neaparat sa cititi si aceasta superba carte a lui Charles Frazier.
Autorul a debutat in 1997 cu celebra "Cold Mountain" care a fost un imens succes, atat la public cat si la critica si care, desigur, a fost ecranizata de Anthony Minghella ("Pacientul englez") cu palidul de Jude Law si Nicole Kidman in rolurile principale.
In ceea ce priveste actiunea, il avem in prim plan pe Will Cooper, un orfan de 12 ani care este trimis de catre unchii sai sa lucreze la magazinul unui gentleman. La plecare i se da un cal (Waverley, ce va deveni animalul sau de incredere), o cheie, o harta, o tigaie de fier si reteta pentru pui fript, dupa care este considerat adult si pe propriile picioare. El trebuie sa calatoreasca pana la granita cu Natiunea - teritoriul stapanit de indienii cherokee.
Pe drum Will il intalneste pe Featherstone, cu care joaca un fel de poker si o castiga pe Claire, de care se indragosteste pentru totdeauna. Ajungand la magazin unde va lucra ca vanzator il cunoaste pe Bear, un indian cu un caracter puternic care il va adopta si il va integra in tribul sau.
Cu timpul Will devine comerciant, avocatul indienilor, apoi senator si capetenia acestora, toata viata lui luptand sa apere interesele acestora dar si sa o cucereasca pe Claire de la Featherstone. Pana la moarte va fi fidel unei singure femei, unui singur cal, unui singur trib.
Romanul mi-a placut foarte mult, autorul avand un mare talent de a povesti, tesand o intriga captivanta, cu mult umor si tristete deopotriva, conturand viata lui Will de la 12 ani pana la batranete.
Am retinut la pagina 188 un descantec sau o vraja de iubire, pentru a lega un barbat pe vecie, care suna cam asa:
"Sa n-ai somn.
Sa n-ai somn si sa te gandesti la mine.
Sa ma vrei.
Doar pe mine.
Te transform chiar acum.
Te transform.
Acum sunt stapana gandurilor tale.
Sunt stapana respiratiei tale.
Sunt stapana inimii tale."
Aceasta incantatie apartine bunicutei Squirrel si trebuie rostita cu voce tare. Poate ca va ajuta pe cineva. :)
Cu aceasta ocazie am invatat si ca "Blind and Straddle" este o forma timpurie de Poker. Si m-a amuzat cea mai bizara mancare despre care am citit vreodata intr-o carte: "carne de marmota si varza, cu lapte de vaca si sos din grasime de marmota, ingrosat cu faina si cu micul creier de marmota facut terci". Ce pot sa adaug decat... pofta buna! :)
In ceea ce priveste marea dragoste pentru Claire, din ceea ce am observat eu, aceasta se desfasoara cam asa: din 600 de pagini, cat are cartea, Will se gandeste la ea 550 de pagini, iar Claire, in jur de 10, cat fac dragoste la rau.
In incheiere, va recomand atat acest roman (cat si ecranizarea de la "Cold Mountain"), pentru imensul talent cu care autorul descrie viata de zi cu zi a indienilor, pentru povestea de viata a protagonistilor si pentru descrierile minunate, adesea fidele istoriei.
Atasez aici mai multe citate care apartin atat lui Will cat si lui Bear si sunt pline de intelepciune:
"Extaz care sa nu parjoleasca nu exista. Iubirea si timpul m-au adus aici."
"Asa ca pe lista lectiilor pe care le-am invatat de la el se afla faptul ca acum nu sunt prea inclinat sa cer compasiune sau intelegerea nimanui, dupa cum nu sunt inclinat sa cer nimanui iertarea, nici macar mie insumi."
"Dorinta supravietuieste. Din tot ce au oamenii, e singurul lucru care tine piept timpului. Restul putrezeste."
"Bear era de parere ca scrisul amorteste spiritul, opreste un suflu sfant. Il inabusa. Dupa ce au fost capturate si intemnitate pe hartie, cuvintele devin o bariera in fata lumii, una pe care e mai bine sa n-o ridici."
"Bear isi daduse seama ca scrisul tipareste un sir de ganduri trecatoare ca si cum ar fi definitive."
"Mi-a raspuns ca legea e ca un topor: taie orice lucru pe care cade. Cel care stie sa nu indrepte lama spre el castiga."
"Esenta povestii e ca dorul ramane, chiar daca tot restul se pierde pentru totdeauna. Una dintre putinele lectii bine-venite pe care le da varsta: numai dorinta arzatoare are un atu asupra timpului."

P.S. In zilele moderne pe care le traim, un sfat pretios de la Will: "Foloseste posta si invata virtutile rabdarii si ale tacerii!" - acesta se refera la folosirea mai putina a telefonului, proaspat introdus in casele oamenilor pe atunci. Acum a ajuns practic sa ne conduca vietile. :)

[Ned · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was likely my favorite of the year, and I’ve read some great ones. It reminds to withhold those 5 star ratings as a general strategy, so they are available for books like this. When I find great fiction like this, it makes me wonder why I struggle through “difficult” books at times – great writing can be a delight, and maybe the greatest writers understand that and have a special skill to tell a tale in a way that is informative, historical, educational, insightful and just plain entertaining. This author doesn’t produce much in the way of novels, perhaps spending his time researching, reading, writing, re-writing and re-writing. That is speculation on my part. I’ve read 3 of his 4 novels now, and each one I have dearly loved. I’ll wait for his later to come out in paperback, and be ready in 2-3 years (the current one has been on m shelf for over a decade). 2018 for me is the year of reading great novels about Native Americans, told by white people who became integrated by odd histories. The settlement of Appalachia by Scotsmen and the Irish, and the mixing of their Gaelic bloodlines with Native Americans, and oddities such as bringing in hogs which, purposely allowed to go feral, then upset the ecosystem, is just fascinating history brought into this tale. The ancient woman of the tribe even recalls the Spanish invaders of a century or more before, which their shiny helmets.

Having no personal relationship with the author, I travel a bit through where he was born, raised and lives in southern Appalachia, in Asheville, NC. This is one of the most stunningly beautiful spots on earth, yet the mountains are treacherous and full of mystery. Cormac McCarthy, my current number one, has early novels set here. The story is only very roughly based on the historical figure William Holland, and Frazier owns up to that clearly in the epilogue. An interesting facet is the title, which the author does not explicitly explain, which I learned is based on the Cherokee device of tracking years by the 13 lunar cycles – being a scientist and (woefully) ignorant of this fact of nature – I was thrilled wtiht coincidence that an ordinary box turtle has a pattern on its back showing 13 sections, surrounded by a perimeter of 28 small ones. The beauty of this, 13 moons and 28 days each, serves as a way to keep a calendar. I love that and it gives me interesting ideas for art projects and paintings of my own.

The lead character, Will, is just delightful. He tells his story with depth, longing and passion as an old man, sorting through his regrets, losses, delights and cherished solitude. It is a story of un-requited love, though he transiently claimed the body of his beloved, he never got her soul and it haunted him to his dying days. This ache persisted and was the burr in his saddle that kept him moving, seeking, and exploring the limits of his abilities. As a protagonist, Will is traditional in that the story is told exclusively from his perspective. But Frazier shows remarkable skill in creating such massive depth in a person, that there is no exhausting of the man, he is a bit of a genius and renaissance frontiersman who just can’t escape his Cherokee roots. Will is a white man, but schooled himself with his Native American hero, Bear, and from time to time departed his trading post to immerse himself in Cherokee culture. He found a father figure in Bear, later becoming his translator and protector, ultimately assuming the mantle of chief (the historical figure Will Holland was apparently one of the only white chiefs known to history). This is a story of great characters, as Will encounters his nemesis the equally interesting, erudite and violent older Featherstone. This man is part Cherokee, but through craft and ingenuity has transformed himself into a mostly white plantation owner, amassing wealth through all sorts of nefarious and legitimate means. Much is made of horses, as one would expect in the pre-civil war period, and personal vendettas are played out over the treatment of Will’s beloved Waverly stead.

Whenever I fancy writing a book of my own, less and less these days, I know I will get stuck on the fact that I will not likely achieve the greatness of a tale such as this. I felt the same way listening to Charlie Parker in my youth, realizing that I could practice my saxophone every waking hour and never even nimble at the edges of that talent. Great literature is obvious when you see it, I and in my older years now I just stand in awe at it, and feel gratitude, that someone used their time, energy and talent to make it happen. It must be a beautifully clean feeling to finish a work of this magnitude and create something that will persist through the ages (whether it does or not is not the fault of the author, as we know, but luck). But reading this book, I think the author is wise and knows that and must feel very proud to have made something that brings joy to so many serious reads (if I may be so conceited). This book evinces Matthiesson’s Shadow Country, which I also elevate on my small, narrow shelf of favorites, it its use of the historical Edgar Watson.

I could find some minor flaw in the book, but what’s the point? It filled me with happiness and I didn’t want it to end. But I know it must, and that is part of it’s’ allure. The story is about the ebb and flows of time, the spectacular beauty of a place that is disappearing. It is “about” the Trail of Tears Indian removal project, but it does not preach. The main character is not idolized, made heroic, but is self deprecating and, frankly, downright hilarious in his sardonic worldview. His adventures and misadventures are infused with whimsy and camaraderie with eclectic soul mates. I learned more history of the ways of a time and place than I would ever put myself through in history books. Like other great novels, however, this one leads me to read other sources to followup on what is truly known. How people lived before the industrial age, kept alive, warm, fed, entertained, and culturally interested is laid out in fine detail. A book that makes me change what I actually do and practice in my life is a real one – I’m onto understanding and observing lunar cycles. That’s great literature for me.

Here are a few samples:

(p. 141) After lovemaking in the mountains with his beloved in blissful youth: “Decades later in life, deep into aching middle age, I held deeds to most of the land I then saw, all the way to the longest horizon, stacks of papers saying all that summer country was mine. But of course, all the paper in tehw orld was nothing in comparison to those three days.”

(p. 219) His great regret, that keeps surfacing through his long life: “That moment has haunted me all my life. Her sitting on the tailboard of the wagon, going away, the driver rattling the reins and the mules pulling and the wooden members of the wagon rubbing and rattling against one another as the wheels rolled through the mud. Claire bending her head and her hair falling over her face like drawing curtains across a bright window. And me saying nothing. Doing nothing. I was a young man, but I believed my best life was over.”

(p. 292) The beginnings of one of the first towns in the wilds of Appalachia, just outside the Indian Territories on a blank place on the maps of the time: “…a school and a church wouldn’t hurt, in regard to our relations with the outer world. The latter two whitewashed buildings were identical, except that the church was capped with a little gesture of steeple at the door end of its gable. Of course, I immediately hired a teacher and a preacher, nearly indistinguishable young men from Baltimore with no better prospects in life other than come to what must have seemed the ass end of creation for a rate of pay that amounted to little above room and board, and forced them to live together in a one-pen log cabin so small they shared a rope-and-tick bedstead. The two were so much of a size they could share each other’s clothes, three black suits identifiable only by degree of fade to grey.”

(p. 296) This must be Lacrosse, but cleverly not named such as the author keeps his story entirely authentic for the time and displays humor: “There were no limitations on violence other than that it was frowned upon- but not forbidden- to scratch like a woman. And bringing a ballcarrier down by dragging at the breechcloth was supposed to be outside the pale, but when it was done and resulted in a man revealed in all his deficiency, great hilarity ensued both in the crowd and among the players.”

(p. 313) This kind of humor is right out of my own playbook: “…carrying a wailing baby bundled in little white blankets. All you could see was the face like a bar owl’s, just as round and flat and pale and fierce. Like all babies. If they had the physical means, they’d kill you without conscience to fulfill their slightest immediate desire. Same as house cats, which if they weighed two hundred pounds would not accede to our existence for a single day.”

(p. 320) the seasons and weather and nature factor into the lunar cycles throughout: “Therefore, autumn was now Bear’s favorite season by far, replacing early summer in his affections. He ached with newfound pleasure all through autumn’s many stages, the slow day-by-day coloring of fragile dogwood and sumac and redbud in late summer, then maple and poplar, then the sudden netherward jolt of the first frost and the overnight withering of the weeds, and finally the heroic fortitude of oak, its most persistent dead leaves gripping the branches all through the bitterest winter until finally cast to earth by the push of new growth in spring. And above all, the waxing and waning of the several moons- End of Fruit, Nut, Harvest, Hunting – commanded Bear’s deepest interest. The different ways they rise and fall in the sky and change from one to the next, from milky and enormous in late summer to tiny as a fingertip and etched hard as burning phosphorus against the wee starts in cold early winter.”

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Charles Frazier is a master of storytelling in the tradition of those ancient storytellers who recited their lore before camp fires and in public places. I can understand why he is at home with his subject matter in Thirteen Moons, as the lives of American indians were passed in just such a manner. Will Cooper bears witness to a sad and shameful period of history, but does so without sentimentality, blame, or the shirking of blame. Will, Claire, Featherstone and Bear emerge as three-dimensional characters who fit their times and the likes of whom it would be hard to find today.

We are seldom any longer presented with a writer whose intent is to do more than tell us a story but instead to inform our lives. Frazier has literary genius. When the palaver of the bestseller list has faded into obscurity, I like to believe there will be an English teacher somewhere teaching this novel and its lessons to a class of rapt students.

[TXGAL1 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautifully written, but, oh my, exceedingly melancholy.

[Tyler McGaughey · Rating 3 out of 5]

A girl in one of my English classes last semester said of this book, "I always get sucked into that Appalachian shit." Frazier romanticizes the lifestyle and landscape of pre-urbanization America better than many writers, making it pretty easy to get 'sucked into that shit.'

However, I think he captured the fertile wonder of the natural world and its rhythms in his first novel, the well-known 'Cold Mountain,' than he does here. When he's at his best, his images of man living in nature can remind the reader of the eloquent backwoods monologues in the films of Terrence Malick.

'Thirteen Moons' starts off strong, promising to be as potent a meditation on love and mankind's encroachment on the noble wilderness as 'Cold Mountain' was. But about 3/4 of the way in, Frazier seems to run of steam. The narrator's various episodes of the final portion of the book aren't nearly as memorable as the sense of discovery and first romance in the beginning half. An argument could be made that this approach the course of life, especially coming from a narrator of such advanced age; the epiphanies of our youth are never equalled as we recede into routine and dullness with age. I can agree with this to some extent, but I still feel that Frazier should either have narrowed his focus, and made the majority of the book about the narrator's love story and young life among the Native Americans, or expanded the latter half of the book to give the events therein more significance.

Still, like I said above, it's hard not to get sucked into this shit and 'Thirteen Moons' is an entertaining read, despite its flaws.

[Lucy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like Cold Mountain, this took me awhile to appreciate. But once I did, wow...there is so much beauty in words, landscape and life study to enjoy.

A sweeping epic of a man's life from the early 1800s to the end of the century in the American South, Frazier describes the harsh realities of a young and sometimes immature government as it expands its territory and faces its own human rights abuses. He does this through the life of Will Cooper, a bound boy on his own since his eleventh year and a man who eventually becomes a Chief, a laywer, a senator, a Colonel and a vast land owner. His life is a lonely one, without family and without Claire, the love of his life. He compensates by devoting his life to the Cherokee and Bear, a clan Chief, who adopted him in his teenage years. While other clans are forced off their eastern mountain land to move west onto reservations, Will keeps them in their mountain home with his evasive lawyering skills which earns him much esteem but also much critism. In the end, he ends up nearly as alone as when the book began.

Read this patiently. Enjoy its honesty and perspective. It is quietly satisfying.

[Shainlock · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was for a book club at the library and it just wasn’t my cup of tea. I was kind of the odd duck out though, in the group.
Some of it was interesting, but I couldn’t focus on it and it’s an odd thing if that happens to me. The prose about the landscape, sounds, and colors worked for me. I also thought there might be some kind of build up to learn from and about the character, but I really got tired of detailed accounts of everywhere he urinated. That ended it for me. I thought, what’s next? I surely don’t want to know.
Perhaps I will try again? I don’t know. Probably not. No.

[♏ Gina☽ · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is quite riveting.

When 12-year-old orphan Will Cooper is handed a key, a horse, and a map, he sets off on an incredible journey. The map takes him through the wilderness of the Cherokee Nation. A bound boy, he must work at a trading post.

Although forced to work at the post, a job he finds unfulfilling, it is the starting point for his real life to begin. He is adopted into the Cherokee Nation, and a man named Bear becomes a father to him. Life is suddenly worth living again - and a love interest named Claire also captivates him.

Will is a wonderful character who had yearned for a family and a home, and he finds one. He learns of the culture of the People, and realizes they are not "savages" that others called them. He finds a family, he finds the home he has needed and deserved, and he finds love. Who could ask for anything more?

[Terry · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel is the fictional tale of Will Cooper, who is orphaned, bound at age 12 as a store clerk, adopted by the Cherokee, and witnesses the attempts to remove the Cherokee from his area of the Blue Ridge Mountains in western North Carolina.

After reading two of his books, Charles Frazier is becoming one of my favorite contemporary writers. There appear to be two other books which I have not read and they will go immediately on my TBR. I hope to find them and read them soon. Unfortunately, he doesn't produce books quickly, but his writing is worthy of waiting.

He is a great storyteller. Book One could be a bit slow until the story of Featherstone, and then it gets better with each story told. The stories in this book could stand alone, each one being a little gem.

His prose is also divine. His descriptions are inventive, and he is a master of the simple declarative sentence. As an example, see the two word sentence that starts the second quote below.

Most of all, he weaves nuggets of wisdom into his character's words. Here are some examples from the book:

"Without a place where you belong, you have too many choices before you and therefore cannot go in any direction. It is a fine line between too few choices and too many."

"I hesitated. I am not proud to report it. It was my Lancelot moment. Hesitate to get in the cart, and you are lost. Maybe every life has one moment where everything could have been different if you'd climbed on the cart."

"I would like to make the concluding act of Charley's story and epic and tragic tale. But almost nothing in life is epic or tragic at the moment of its enactment. History in the making, at least on a personal level, is almost exclusively pathetic. People suffer and die in ignorance and delusion."

In wanting to have Charley remembered to posterity, Will wanted to give "...Charley's final days a created shape and meaning rather than leave things the way life actually overtakes us, which most of the time is just one damn thing after another, all adding up to confusion."

In thinking that his beloved is full and complete, he muses, "Though the rational, unenraptured part of me figured that no one, man or woman, gets to be full and complete ever. We all go about burdened with the reality that we are the broken-off ends of true people. It is the severe vengeance Creation takes on us for living."

Life is full of absurdity and pathos. Although perhaps on the pessimistic side, these words contain elements of universal life truths about the human experience, which when expressed in a novel, is the mark of good literature.

[Adela · Rating 3 out of 5]

”Extaz care să nu pârjolească nu există. [...] Credința la care am ajuns de-a lungul acestei perioade generoase și totuși insuficiente pe pământ este că sosim în viața de apoi la fel de zdrobiți cum suntem când părăsim lumea.”

”Dacă supraviețuiești suficient de mult, ajungi la un moment îndepărtat din viață dincolo de care nu se va mai întâmpla nimic interesant. După aceea, dacă nu ești atent, poți ajunge să-ți petreci tot timpul cântărind pierderile și câștigurile într-o litanie nesfârșită. Tot ce iubești a plecat sau ți-a fost luat. Nu ți-a mai rămas nimic în afară de amintirile care țâșnesc din beznă subit, fără veste, și te inundă cu iuțeala bătăilor de inimă.”

”[...] era de părere că scrisul amorțește spiritul. [...] După ce au fost capturate și întemnițate pe hârtie, cuvintele devin o barieă în fața lumii, una pe care e mai bine să n-o ridici. Tot ce se întâmplă e schimbător. După ce au avut loc, evenimentele mai trăiesc doar în memoria ta și, în timp, își schimbă forma. O întâmplare pusă pe hârtie e țintuită locului, exact ca o piele de șarpe cu clopoței jupuită de pe carne, care stă în cuie pe peretele hambarului. La fel de nemișcată și tot atât de falsă în comparație cu originalul. Plată, necinstită, primejdioasă.”

[Hansen Wendlandt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I suppose this novel may be even more interesting for people familiar with the Appalachians or the natural life, but anyone can appreciate Frazier’s great characters, adventure, romance and occasionally sympathetic but ultimately realistic lament for the ‘progress’ of civilization over native culture. This is an entertaining story with great balance of action and depth, moving the many plots smoothly along without sacrificing any detail. He writes conversations masterfully, especially the great one-liners between Will and Bear. The narrative is tragic in many ways, even depressing at times; but so often funny and touching.
Will from Thirteen Moons is more fatally heroic than Inman from Frazier’s first best-seller, Cold Mountain. If we are supposed to relate, it is more toward his outlook than any particular situation. For instance, some of us might appreciate Will’s feelings of lost love for Claire, but no one would mistake the epic fictionalization here. Others may understand his anger with Featherstone, or respect for Bear, maybe his constant struggle to better himself and the (his?) land; but with all of that, he is much more a symbol of America’s ambivalent, lucky growth than any individual could ever associate. Perhaps, however, his financial and political brokenness, and blasé reflections on solitude, both social and existential, are beginning to mirror the state of our country and citizenry. What telephones and railroads did to shatter his last hopes of purity and freedom, as impure and impractical as those hopes may have been, our computers and economy are finally breaking any false balance and optimism that modern living tries to offer. What remains? “The gist of the story is that even when all else is lost and gone forever, there is yearning.” (5) Will has to remember, and remembers however he can, accuracy and precision be damned, or he feels stuck in a cynical present. What he doesn’t remember are grudges, as a central component of his hard earned wisdom is forgiveness: “When people get to the age you are, anybody that shares even a few of your memories is a treasure beyond price. Love them and forgive their foolishness and hope they’ll forgive yours.” (369)
There is something almost magical or at least super-human about Bear: his native simplicity and honor in the face of destructive people and nature; but with ever-present grief and political strategy, he can seem as human as you or I. His thoughts on Christianity are apt. “He judged the Bible to be a sound book. Nevertheless, he wondered why the white people were not better than they are, having had it for so long.” (91)
A subtle religious tone flows through this whole novel. If it has to be categorized, let’s call it Pragmatic Individual Spirituality… “I had always believed prayer ought to be conducted on our feet rather than on our knees, since God seems in all other departments of life to require us to stand upright and account for ourselves.” (294) “We are so habitually inattentive that when some rare but simple geometry grabs us by the shoulders and shakes us into consciousness, we call our response sacred.” (97) “Every path through the world but peace leads to eight kinds of loneliness.” (366) “It is best not to study too much on who gets what they deserve. It can lead to an overly complicated interpretation of God’s personal attributes.” (412)
A few final quotes that can’t be left unattended:
“If you can’t get drunk when your entire world comes crashing down around your feet, why did God make alcohol to begin with?” (215)
“My tolerance for stupidity is at low ebb, especially when the stupidity’s my own.” (351)
“Be happy in the flash of time granted to us or hurt forever. Those are the harsh and contradictory rules Creation has laid down for the game we’re forced to play.” (394)

[Forrest · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Cold Mountain" was such an amazing work of literature, that pretty much anything Frazier followed up with was bound to suffer by comparison. But I think this book particularly fails to deliver on the promise of talent that Frazier showed in his first novel.

"Thirteen Moons" is the story of a man named Will. It is essentially his "autobiography," written as he is dying around the end of the 19th or beginning of the 20th century. The plot is linear, moving from Will's childhood to his old age. And Frazier has once again crafted a work of historical fiction, but the elements that made "Cold Mountain" such a success aren't present here.

I think there are two main flaws with the novel. The first is that every character in the book (in sharp contrast to those in "Cold Mountain") lacks depth or roundness; many feel poorly drawn out or inaccessable. Because of this, the book simply isn't interesting. The characters are never explicated fully enough to hold the reader's attention, which means that burden is shifted entirely to the plot, which subsequently fails at this task. The events in the book/the events in Will's life are, by and large, disappointingly average. Most of the novel centers around Will's attempts to keep his Native American friend/mentor Bear, and Bear's people, on their land. A fine subject for a novel, but one that fails to hold attention here because it's hard to grasp why Will finds this such an important task in his life (because Bear mentored him? Because he feels connected to the land and really wants it for himself? Other?).

Additionally, there's a romance between Will and a girl/woman named Claire that, unlike the romance in "Cold Mountain," never really seems real or fleshed out. Will spends his entire life pining for Claire, intermittently meeting up with her at different points in their lives; but their connection is never adequately described. To me, their teenage romance seemed just that; a teenage romance, nothing greater or more special. So for Will to mourn the rest of his life over the lack of Claire in it seems odd at best, and ludicrous at worst.

The second flaw is that in addition to the events and characters being flat and uninteresting, the writing style sadly mirrors the characters and events. Frazier, obviously a talented writer, seems here to have lost his ability to render prose in more than a wooden and stiff manner. There are some lovely passages in the book, to be sure; one in particular about the ways in which the river looks in each season of the year is beautiful. But for the most part, the writing style matches that of any regular person writing down their life story. Straightforward, with little embellishment. Toward the end, Will writes about his trips to Washington DC and his battles in Court, and all I could think was "BORING." Not just because of the subject matter, but because of the way in which it was written.

I think the book might have been ok if either flaw had existed solely by itself; good writing might have made up for uninteresting characters, or an interesting plot/well rounded characters might have made up for dull writing. But the combination of the two flaws is fatal. I hope that Frazier produces another novel on par with "Cold Mountain." This, sadly, is not even close.

[Don · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was completely captivated by Charles Frazier's inaugural novel, Cold Mountain. The journey of the protagonist, the elements of the time, the food, paths, war; I was very taken with the writing and the story. I happened to be traveling in the Carolinas at the time of reading Cold Mountain which I confess might have deepened the novel's impression on me. I was enamored of the prose. So, when recently perusing the my public library, my wife suggested Thirteen Moons, who was I to say no? Not I. I was giddy as I had been waiting a good 10 years for his next novel to hit the library.

Disappointment. Set in a similar time period and penned in the Civil War era vernacular left me wondering where all of Frazier's charm had gone. I could simply garner no sympathy or empathy for Will. Thrown out on his own, left to his own devices bereft of any experience at the ripe age of 12, nothing in this novel made me care a whit about this character. I found all the players one-dimensional shells of their cliched historical selves and very hard to take seriously. If there was a point of witty embellishment at the reader's expense, it was completely lost on this reader.

No, I did not like this novel and it took me a very long time to finish. However, I must give credit where it's due. I learned something about the evacuation of Native Americans and the Trail of Tears. I saw the 19th century a bit differently through what is a very well written story. However well written it was, it just could not capture my imagination.

[Deity World · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written a 12 year old sets out for the adventure of his life. This book is about life and survival during the civil war and reminded me a lot of red dead redemption

[Shane · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fictionalized attempt to being to life the history of Appalachian North Carolina in the 19th century.

Will Cooper is a stand-in for the real-life William Holden Thomas (despite the author’s assertions to the contrary), a white orphan who lives among the Cherokee, rises to the position of “white chief” among them, becomes a Confederate soldier, US senator, lawyer and landowner in those halcyon days when the West was opening up, and then who loses everything as he gets to the end of his life and the Thirteen Moons of the year spin faster and faster for him, as they do for everyone nearing their end.

Will’s adopted father is the wise Bear, a landowner himself on the American side, replete with farmstead, cabins, winter house, cornfields, orchards, corrals, lean tos and a menstrual hut for his many wives. Will buys land too, but while Bear owns his land outright, Will owns his by debt. The bad guy is Featherstone, a mixed breed wine connoisseur with a penchant for literature, who owns houses, plantations, slaves, steals horses and gambles for wives. The fictitious element is Claire, one of Featherstone’s wives won in a game of chance, who is Will’s perennial love, a woman who flits in and out of his life many times over but never stays.

The Indian and the White Man are interbred but not integrated when President Andrew Jackson enacts his great “Removal” legislation and the indigenous are pushed out of their lands to the west of the Mississippi, a deal, the author contends, that was hatched with the complicity of the Indian chiefs who profited from it. Will manages to keep Bear’s people whole in their land, but the Civil War that follows thirty years later upends that arrangement; Will’s debts and general mismanagement of his affairs lead to the loss of most of his land. The real-life William Holden Thomas suffered mental illness in his twilight years, and this is alluded to in Will’s erratic behaviour, but is never clearly spelled out. I mean, why would Will spend his last days shooting birdshot at passing trains?

The novel is episodic, with the obvious intent to capture the chronological order of historic events as they transpired. This leads to an “up and down” pacing that never really reaches a novelistic climax. There is a lot of detail that could have been taken out in the interest of brevity. But the author faces the classic conundrum of how much to put in and how much to take out in drawing the landscape and the characters. The excess verbiage helps in that the Appalachian landscape is captured beautifully and the principal characters are well drawn. Some scenes—the duel between Will and Featherstone, Will’s nights with Bear in the winter house, the hunting of Charley, and the nocturnal escapades of Will and Claire—stand out. But in between there is a lot of telling and placing of the historical record.

I learned a lot about the customs, currencies, and food of the time, and about how people survived off the land. New words like jimson (penis), linkster (translator) and chaffering (chafing) pepper the narrative. The difference between the indigenous and the settler also come out: The Indian kills to live, the White Man kills to trade; The Indian claims the land he needs, the White Man claims the land he wants. It is unfortunate that over time the Indian adopts the White Man’s practices.

I ploughed through this slow moving novel mainly because I was interested in the history and culture of nineteenth century Appalachia that I had not studied closely before. It made me appreciate why there are so many indigenous land claims today—the White Man created the conditions for the dispute. Had the immigrants, coming across the ocean in shiploads, intermarried with the locals, as they seemed to be doing before 1830, without carving out the land between “them and us”, we may have had a more harmoniously integrated America today.

[Book Concierge · Rating 5 out of 5]

Audiobook performed by Will Patton
5*****

Frazier’s sophomore effort returns to the rural Carolina landscape, covering nearly a century from the 1820s to the very beginning of the 20th century. The tale is told by Will Cooper, who as a twelve-year-old orphan was sent into the wilderness as a “bound boy” – beholden to a serve as the lone shopkeeper of a remote Indian Trading Post in exchange for a small stipend. He was sent from his uncle’s home with a horse, a key, an old map, and his father’s knife. He is befriended by Bear, a Cherokee chief, and develops a strong relationship with the father figure.

What a marvelous story, and beautifully told. Will’s life is full of adventure and opportunities, as well as peril and mistakes. At the outset of his journey he begins the habit of keeping journals and it is these documents that help record his extraordinary ordinary life. At a tender age, Will falls head-over-heels in love with the enigmatic Claire, who is the powerful Featherstone’s girl. He develops skills as a trader, negotiator and entrepreneur. He reads voraciously and becomes a lawyer. He meets, and either befriends or makes enemies of, a variety of famous individuals, including Andrew Jackson and Davey Crockett. He finagles and trades and manages to kluge together quite a large parcel of land. He makes and loses and remakes several fortunes. He seeks the counsel of Bear and also of Granny Squirrel, a medicine woman who is said to be over 200 years old, and whose spells cannot be broken.

Frazier paints this time and place so vividly, I felt transported to that time. I could smell the pines, hear bacon fat sizzling in a pan, feel the chill of a winter morning or the warmth of a welcome fire, taste the delicious stews and French wines. Here are a couple of memorable passages:
I slept on the open ground and watched the enormous sky off and on between brief bouts of sleep. It was a dark night, without any moon at all and utterly cloudless. The air was dry and the stars were sharp points in the dark and there seemed to be a great many more of them than I ever remembered seeing before. And then it came to my attention that it was a night of meteor showers. Spouts and shoots of light, both thin and broad, arced overhead.

The cool damp air smelled of wet growing leaves and rotted dead leaves. A redtail hawk sat in a Fraser fir. It stared my way and shook water out of its feathers. It spread its wings and its tail, and it bowed toward me – or lunged, perhaps. I thought there was recognition in the look it gave me, and I put an arm straight into the air as a salute, for I guessed the hawk to be a representative of the mountains themselves, an ambassador charged with greeting me upon my return.

She had beautiful soft hair the color of a dove’s breast and green eyes and creamy long legs that turned under into unfortunately long narrow feet, but she had a behind with curves to break your heart. At least, they broke mine.

Will Cooper’s America is long gone but vividly brought to mind by Frazier’s skill. On finishing, I find that I want to start over again at the beginning, savoring every word.

Will Patton is fast becoming one of my favorite audiobook narrators. He does a marvelous job with Frazier’s text, bringing the many characters to life.

[Frances · Rating 2 out of 5]

In many ways, Charles Frazier's Thirteen Moons reads like a homage to James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans, as well as a gratuitous appraisal of the birth and death of U.S. cowboy culture. The protagonist and narrator, Will Cooper, might as well be a long-lost relative of Natty Bumpo (whom he often references), a white man "going native" in a small community of Cherokee. The most interesting thing about the book is Frazier's research into the lives and particularly the multi-ethnicity of the Cherokee tribes living on the border of the early United States in the 19th century. Few accurate historical accounts of these tribes have been published, and Frazier points to the discrepancies surrounding white idealizations of Native American culture. This critique, if anything else, made the book an interesting revisionist account of 19th century American history.

Unfortunately, the narrator of Cooper, as a self-made celebration of the American "bootstrap" myth, gets rather wearisome after a while. The book is styled as a memoir, and Cooper often points to moments that supposed altered his character from what it was "then" to the moment of his recollection; yet, Cooper's overall personality--his arrogance, his chauvinism, and his overall hubris--doesn't seem to alter, even when he says it does. Though undoubtedly Frazier is trying to construct a kind of caricature of the idealized "American", built on the myth of "True Americanism" and other frontier mythology, he does so at risk of ultimately alienating the reader. By the end of Thirteen Moons, Cooper's quaintly archaic attitudes become grating and undeserving of our attention, and we start to wonder whether or not the book was worth the last two hundred pages or not.

[Melissa Franckowiak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Starts off strong with lovely prose.

[Elizabeth (Alaska) · Rating 5 out of 5]

The novel is divided into five parts with each part also having chapters. Each is told in the first person by Will Cooper. The first and last very short parts are called Bone Moon. In these Will Cooper is an old man. The first one is sort of like a Preface when he tells us he has gained a lost a fortune twice. Will tells about two men who were important in his life, Bear and Featherstone. At the end of this very small section there is a phone call from a woman who says she is Claire. He is bereft when the connection is lost. We don't know the exact time period when Will is old, but there is electricity and telephones and automobiles so I chose to think of it as early 20th Century. Will tells about two men who were important in his life, Bear and Featherstone. The last part is sort of an Epilogue. The other three parts tell us how these three people were important throughout his life.

The second part is called Arrival. Twelve year old Will Cooper is an orphan and living with his aunt and uncle. A man comes by on a horse and offers to take Will off their hands, that Will be taken to the wilderness where the man has a couple of trading posts where the boy will be put in charge. The obligation is for 7 years. The aunt and uncle agree and Will is placed in bondage for 7 years. I wasn't certain of the exact time period, but Will mentions the Revolution so I assumed it was a more or less recent past. With other references, I think the beginning of this novel takes place in the years between the War of 1812 and the presidency of Andrew Jackson (1829-1837).

The trading post is "west of civilization" and in the southern Appalachian mountains. It is Cherokee country.

I kept the ledgers by the new-style calendar - the names of the days in the week, the numbers of days in the month. But in my mind, those were beginning to mean nothing, and it was just the four seasons and the thirteen moons wheeling across the night sky that marked real time.

Will learns a lot living in Cherokee country. Not only does he learn to speak the language, but he is privileged to be accepted fully in their community. Bear tells him about his own loss when early in his life his wife died and his year of grieving.

... Primarily, though, Bear did himself good by going to water and immersing himself in the river every morning at sunrise throughout the year. He went even when big wet snowflakes fell all around him and disappeared into the black water without making even a brief dimple in its smooth face. And he went to water on spring mornings, when the river steamed and carried the fallen peach-colored blossoms of tulip trees and skinned over with yellow pollen and the wormlike tags from oak trees, and trout held themselves still against the current and waited for food to pass by and their speckled backs merged with the color and pattern of the mossy stones on the riverbed.

No, the writing isn't filled with such descriptive passages, but I liked this one obviously. For me, it set the mood for Will of how peaceful life could be despite this "going to water" was the salve to soothe grief. Although there was the occasional sentence fragment, I mostly loved the writing in this, else I would not have shared the foregoing. I forgave the fragments because this is a first person narrative and, as I've said before, I'm pretty sure I don't think in complete sentences. This is mostly the characterization of Will Cooper, but it is also what he sees in his life. His life has some joy - there is a wonderful love story as in his memory of Claire - but also deep sadness.

The third part is called Removal which depicts the Trail of Tears and what Will tried to do to help his people. The fourth part is titled Nightfall which is the Cherokee term for death. By the end of that fourth part I was in tears. One can only see the deprivation of those one honors and lose love oneself and not feel it deeply.

I have written enough. I tend to stop reading long or even longish reviews and this one is getting to the point where I'd probably stop reading. This was literally on my shelf for over 5 years, waiting patiently. My only regret is that I didn't read it 5 years ago. And, to repeat that numeral, this was fully a 5-star read.

[Stephani · Rating 5 out of 5]

Set in NC Mountains during, before, and after the removal of the Native Americans, when land beyond the Mississippi was wilderness and Tennessee was considered "The West".
Protagonist: William Cooper, also narrator
Love: Claire Featherstone
Antagonist: Featherstone, Claire's father
Also: Bear, father figure and friend to Narrator

Themes:
Language, Communication, Mistranslation
Brevity of youth, brevity of life
Life as suffering with only short reliefs
Loss of Identity

"The fleeting nature of our instantaneous lives dictates that we pass through thte land almost as briefly as water passes through us and with no more real claim to possession."

"All translations miss something some miss everything. Irony. Indirection. Complex metaphors. Straight-Faced humor. Damped-Down anger. The human touch."

"We are made to be destroyed. We are kindling for the fire, and our lives will stand as naught against the onrush of time."
"The refusal to fear these general terms of existence is an honorable act of defiance."

"Bear didn't think he and his people could turn white no matter how hard they tried. But he didn't much want to try at all. He wondered if you could be said to have survived if in the end you didn't even recognize yourself or your new life or your homeland. Do you dissipate like a drop of blood in a bucket of milk, or do you persist, a small stone tossed into a rushing river?"

[Camie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Will Cooper is a 12 year old boy who is “ bound” out into the wilderness of the Cherokee Nation to work in a trading post, gets adopted by Bear a great Indian Chief, and later ends up as an honorary one himself.
I enjoyed this book which is narrated by a near century old Will as he looks back over his life with a great wisdom that only comes with age.
Charles Frazier author of “ Cold Mountain” can really turn a phrase and since Literary Fiction is my favorite, I enjoyed it more for the writing style ( which is pretty darn amazing) than for the actual plot which involves the underlying theme of the unjust relocation of the Indian people in frontier America.
5 stars - Read for On The Southern Literary Trail Club

[Sharon Huether · Rating 4 out of 5]

An orphan, Will Cooper sets out on a lifetime of adventure. He had a horse, maps and very little money. He makes friends with "Bear" from the Cherokee nation. Will never forgot his first love Claire. He was against the government relocation of the Indian Nation. He was never afraid to travel and was a lawyer. He owned many general stores. He grew to love the finer things in life, good food, literature. The author wrote the story in a very flowing manner.

[Bandit · Rating 3 out of 5]

Appalachia, much like American history in general, will never be my subject of choice, but every so often an author comes along who makes it interesting and rewarding reading experience. Frazier has done so with Nightwoods and it was a reasonably good assumption that he might again, although technically this is in reverse chronological order. Alas, this book lacked Nightwoods succinct grace and subtlety and failed to make up for it in verbosity, being something like time and a half the size. While they share a locale (though this one goes much further back in time), where Nightwoods was a quiet small story, this one is something of an epic, a reminiscence of a long life of a white man adapted into a Native American (the book, of course, in accordance to its time uses the term Indian, but why repeat anachronistic and geographical snafus) tribe and subsequently living out his years as something of both, while actively participating in the US history and politics of the time, wars, etc. There are some interesting characters, a somewhat unsatisfactory, however passionate, love story and some fine meditations on the nature of aging, since the story is told as a sort of memoirish recollection of the main protagonist as an old man, but ultimately, despite the strikingly lovely writing, the book didn't entertain me to the point where subject didn't matter. Maybe it was too long or too heavily narrated, it wasn't plodding per se, but occasionally tiresome and after the first half or so pertaining to early years, it just didn't really maintain the adventurous dynamic or engage. Beauty of language can sustain a smaller book easily enough, but for something this size more is required, something exciting maybe. It was a perfectly good book, but didn't quite veer into greatness territory.

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book after seeing it in the gift shop of the Museum of the Cherokee in Cherokke, NC. I have an interest in Native American writers and topics, as well as an interest in the history of the land surrounding the Smoky Mountains, a vacation spot my husband and I have visited frequently. Although fiction, Frazier took great pains to research the Cherokee people and their complex history with the land. Barbara Duncan, Education Director for the Museum, was one of his sources. It does NOT read like a history book, which is great. Instead, it is more like a memoir of a young boy abandoned by his family at a young age. Fortunately, he is educated, resourceful, and respected by many, including a Cherokee elder who adopts him. The novel covers his life span, documenting his efforts to retain Cherokee lands during the time of the Removal. Very interesting. Beautiful simple descriptions of a man's feelings for his fellow man, the land, and the love of his life.