Frazier's back with 'Thirteen Moons'

My title as a native North Carolinian may be stripped, but I'm just going to go ahead and say it, damn the torpedoes.

(Sigh)

I didn't like Cold Mountain.

Actually, I must rephrase that: I didn't finish Cold Mountain. Heck, I couldn't get past the first dozen pages or so. There's only so much I can read about a fly buzzing around war victims.

Having said that, there's no doubt that Cold Mountain by North Carolina's Charles Frazier is one of the most important books of the past 20 years or so.

"I thought if Cold Mountain was ever published, 10,000 people in the South or the Appalachians might be interested in it,” Frazier told the Asheville Citizen-Times.

"Four million copies later, with translations into 30 foreign languages, a National Book Award and a slew of literary prizes and the inspiration for an Oscar-nominated movie, Frazier had created a phenomenon," says the article.

" 'I tried to make it as local and true to Western North Carolina as I could, but it seemed to touch something universal,' admitted the Asheville native who grew up in Andrews."

Frazier has taken his time working on his follow up, which is called Thirteen Moons.

"It seems blasphemous to even consider the possibility of a sophomore slump for a writer as hugely talented and important as Frazier," writes USA Today. "But comparisons are inevitable, in no small part because Frazier invites them.

"Like Cold Mountain, Thirteen Moons is set in 19th-century North Carolina. Like Cold Mountain, it's a love story — although the love object is a lot more slippery than Ada Monroe. And like Cold Mountain, it's about a changing America, an elegy to the loss of a beloved way of life. Even the dust jackets, with their misty images of distant mountains, are similar.

"But there are also significant differences, which give Thirteen Moons its own distinct and sometimes magical life.

"Gone is the omniscient narrator of Cold Mountain, who like a hawk followed the riveting, dangerous journey of Inman back to his true love. In its place is the first-person voice of orphaned Will Cooper, who as Thirteen Moons opens is an old man baffled by a new invention (the telephone) who has decided it's time to tell the story of his life. ..." (Click here to read the rest of the review.)

Frazier's lastest is once again linked with the Tar Heel State -- perhaps even moreso than his first offering.

"Turning his meticulous research and elegant style from the Civil War setting of Cold Mountain, Frazier found inspiration for Thirteen Moons in the rich heritage and often tragic history of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians," says the Citizen-Times.

" 'The Eastern Band is very pleased that such a notable author as Charles Frazier has undertaken the daunting task of conveying intricate stories typical of our Removal Era history,' said Principal Chief Michell Hicks in the tribe’s official statement on the book. ...

"If Frazier’s first book is any indication, Cherokee can expect a boom in business. More than a book, Cold Mountain became a kind of travel guide to many fans. Many have tried to trace the physical route of Frazier’s hero, Inman, as he walked from Raleigh to Haywood County. The community of Cold Mountain itself existed only in Frazier’s imagination, but the novel’s name came from the lonely 6,030-foot peak visible from the Blue Ridge Parkway. ..."