Synopses & Reviews
At the age of twelve, an orphan named Will Cooper is given a horse, a key, and a map and is sent on a journey through the uncharted wilderness of the Cherokee Nation. Will is a bound boy, obliged to run a remote Indian trading post. As he fulfills his lonesome duty, Will finds a father in Bear, a Cherokee chief, and is adopted by him and his people, developing relationships that ultimately forge Wills character. All the while, his love of Claire, the enigmatic and captivating charge of volatile and powerful Featherstone, will forever rule Wills heart. In a voice filled with both humor and yearning, Will tells of a lifelong search for home, the hunger for fortune and adventure, the rebuilding of a trampled culture, and above all an enduring pursuit of passion.
Named ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR by
Los Angeles Times Book Review, Chicago Tribune,
and St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“A literary journey of magnitude . . . Thirteen Moons belongs to the ages.”
-Los Angeles Times
“A boisterous, confident novel that draws from the epic tradition: It tips its hat to Don Quixote as well as Twain and Melville, and it boldly sets out to capture a broad swatch of Americas story in the mid-nineteenth century.”
-The Boston Globe
“Frazier works on an epic scale, but his genius is in the details-he has a scholars command of the physical realities of early America and a novelists gift for bringing them to life.”
-Time
“A powerhouse second act . . . a brilliant success.”
-The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“Compulsively readable . . . a fitting successor to Cold Mountain.”
-St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“Magical . . . fascinating and moving . . . You will find much to admire and savor in Thirteen Moons.”
-USA Today
“Genius.”
-Time
“Mesmerizing . . . a bountiful literary panorama . . . The history that Frazier hauntingly unwinds through Will is as melodic as it is melancholy, but the sublime love story is the narratives true heart.”
-Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Brimming with vivid, adventurous incident.”
-Raleigh News & Observer
“Reading a Frazier novel is like listening to a fine symphony. . . . Take the time to savor Fraziers work, to take in each thought, to relish the turn of phrase or the imagery of a craftsman.”
-The Denver Post
“[Four stars] . . . Commanding . . . Fraziers faithful will not be disappointed.”
-People
“Superbly entertaining.”
-Richmond Times-Dispatch
“Fascinating . . . vivid and alive.”
-Newsweek
Review
"There are successful scenes along the way, and, as in Cold Mountain, the world of the Appalachian forest primeval is brought to life. But neither of the plot lines is effective, and the problem is Cooper." Louis Menand, The New Yorker
Review
"It's fertile material so why is this novel so much less moving than Cold Mountain?...Will's tale is, by turns, amusing, bawdy, bloody, and poignant, but finishing one baggy chapter never leaves you panting for the next. (Grade: B-)" Entertainment Weekly
Review
"[A] literary journey of magnitude. Whether on a plane, in an office or curled in a window seat, readers who absorb Will's story will find their own lives enriched. Thirteen Moons belongs to the ages." Michael Blake, The Los Angeles Times
Review
"Thirteen Moons despite its often somber subject matter is a considerably airier production [than Cold Mountain]: reminiscent, at times, of Thomas Berger's Little Big Man and a lot closer to Larry McMurtry than to Cormac McCarthy." Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
Review
"[W]ithout Cold Mountain's perfect structure, Moons becomes an amiable companion in need of an editor....You will find much to admire and savor in Thirteen Moons, but you won't love it like you did Cold Mountain." USA Today
Review
"One of the great Native American and American stories, and a great gift to all of us, from one of our very best writers." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Unfortunately, for the first fourth of the book, there is too much detail for the plot to easily bear. But, finally, the characters are able to step out from behind this blanket of particulars and incidentals and make the story work." Booklist
Review
"Frazier's long-awaited second novel ambles off to a slow start, crawls along at a turtle's pace, and reaches its destination after some torturous plotting and doubtful characterization....A tiresome novel." Library Journal
Review
"Will's (and Frazier's) love for his Cherokee family and the Eden of the Smoky Mountains created the power and beauty of Thirteen Moons' early chapters. Their loss, however, left the novelist and his hero empty and a promising novel adrift." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Review
"[A] boisterous, confident novel that draws from the epic tradition....Frazier draws a massive canvas of historical fiction in Thirteen Moons, remaining true to the heartbreak of a land and its indigenous culture nearly torn asunder." Boston Globe
Review
"Thirteen Moons [is] the best evidence yet that somewhere between one page and 400, a lot can go wrong....Plodding through Thirteen Moons, one admires its scope and verisimilitude. But this tale is meant to be an elegy both for a woman and an epoch of history. And in the end, you probably won't miss either. You'll mourn only that bygone era when reward and result bore a closer correlation." Noah Oppenheim, Esquire (read the entire Esquire review)
Synopsis
Charles Frazier's
Thirteen Moons is the story of one man's remarkable life, spanning a century of relentless change. At the age of twelve, an orphan named Will Cooper is given a horse, a key, and a map and is sent on a journey through the wilderness to the edge of the Cherokee Nation, the uncharted white space on the map. Will is a bound boy, obliged to run a remote Indian trading post. As he fulfills his lonesome duty, Will finds a father in Bear, a Cherokee chief, and is adopted by him and his people, developing relationships that ultimately forge Will's character. All the while, his love of Claire, the enigmatic and captivating charge of volatile and powerful Featherstone, will forever rule Will's heart.
In a distinct voice filled with both humor and yearning, Will tells of a lifelong search for home, the hunger for fortune and adventure, the rebuilding of a trampled culture, and above all an enduring pursuit of passion. As he comes to realize, When all else is lost and gone forever, there is yearning. One of the few welcome lessons age teaches is that only desire trumps time.
Will Cooper, in the hands of Charles Frazier, becomes a classic American soul: a man devoted to a place and its people, a woman, and a way of life, all of which are forever just beyond his reach. Thirteen Moons takes us from the uncharted wilderness of an unspoiled continent, across the South, up and down the Mississippi, and to the urban clamor of a raw Washington City. Throughout, Will is swept along as the wild beauty of the nineteenth century gives way to the telephones, automobiles, and encroaching railways of the twentieth. Steeped in history, rich in insight, and filled with moments of sudden beauty, Thirteen Moons is an unforgettable work of fiction by an American master.
Synopsis
This magnificent novel by one of America's finest writers is the epic of one man's remarkable journey, set in nineteenth-century America against the background of a vanishing people and a rich way of life. At the age of twelve, under the Wind moon, Will is given a horse, a key, and a map, and sent alone into the Indian Nation to run a trading post as a bound boy. It is during this time that he grows into a man, learning, as he does, of the raw power it takes to create a life, to find a home. In a card game with a white Indian named Featherstone, Will wins--for a brief moment--a mysterious girl named Claire, and his passion and desire for her spans this novel. As Will's destiny intertwines with the fate of the Cherokee Indians--including a Cherokee Chief named Bear--he learns how to fight and survive in the face of both nature and men, and eventually, under the Corn Tassel Moon, Will begins the fight against Washington City to preserve the Cherokee's homeland and culture. And he will come to know the truth behind his belief that "only desire trumps time."
Brilliantly imagined, written with great power and beauty by a master of American fiction, Thirteen Moons is a stunning novel about a man's passion for a woman, and how loss, longing and love can shape a man's destiny over the many moons of a life.
About the Author
Charles Frazier was born in Asheville, North Carolina. Cold Mountain, his first novel, was an international bestseller and won the National Book Award in 1997, as well as the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.