Nightwoods by Charles Frazier

Description

Bibliographic Details

• Author: Charles Frazier
• Title: Nightwoods
• Publisher: ‎ Random House; First Edition (September 27, 2011)
• Language: ‎ English
• Format: Hardcover ‏w/Deckle Edge – 259 pages
• ISBN-10: 140006709X
• ISBN-13: 978-1400067091
• Item Weight: ‎ 1.15 pounds
• Dimensions: ‎ 6.55 x 0.98 x 9.58 inches
• Book Condition: Used – Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
• Edition: First Edition

Synopsis:

The extraordinary author of Cold Mountain and Thirteen Moons returns with a dazzling new novel of suspense and love set in small-town North Carolina in the early 1960s.

 

Charles Frazier puts his remarkable gifts in the service of a lean, taut narrative while losing none of the transcendent prose, virtuosic storytelling, and insight into human nature that have made him one of the most beloved and celebrated authors in the world. Now, with his brilliant portrait of Luce, a young woman who inherits her murdered sister’s troubled twins, Frazier has created his most memorable heroine.

 

Before the children, Luce was content with the reimbursements of the rich Appalachian landscape, choosing to live apart from the small community around her. But the coming of the children changes everything, cracking open her solitary life in difficult, hopeful, dangerous ways.

 

Charles Frazier is known for his historical literary odysseys, and for making figures in the past come vividly to life. Set in the twentieth century, Nightwoods resonates with the timelessness of a great work of art.

About the Author:

Charles Frazier (born November 4, 1950) is an American novelist. He won the 1997 National Book Award for Fiction for Cold Mountain.

Frazier was born in Asheville, North Carolina, grew up in Andrews and Franklin, North Carolina, and graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1973. He earned an M.A. from Appalachian State University in the mid-1970s, and received his Ph.D. in English from the University of South Carolina in 1986. A 1985 published work by Frazier was a trail guide to the Andes and environs for the Sierra Club.

Frazier taught English, first at University of Colorado Boulder, then English at North Carolina State University. His wife convinced him to quit in order to work full-time on his novel. His friend and fellow North Carolina novelist, Kaye Gibbons, presented his unfinished novel to her literary agency, which led to the publication of Cold Mountain.

Cold Mountain was his first novel, published in 1997 by Atlantic Monthly Press. It traces the journey of Inman, a wounded deserter from the Confederate army near the end of the American Civil War.

Cold Mountain won the 1997 U.S. National Book Award and was adapted as a 2003 film of the same name by Anthony Minghella.

Frazier's second novel, Thirteen Moons, published in 2006, traces the story of one man across a century of change in America. Also set in western North Carolina, the novel traces one white man's involvement with the Cherokee Indians just before, during and after their removal to Oklahoma. It is a story of struggle and triumph against the emerging U.S. government's plan to remove native Cherokee people to Oklahoma. Based on the success of Cold Mountain, Frazier was offered an $8 million advance for Thirteen Moons.

Frazier's 2011 book, Nightwoods, takes place in the 20th century, although the setting is still the Appalachian Mountains.

Frazier's fourth novel, Varina, is based on the life of Varina Davis, First Lady of the Confederate States of America. It was published in 2018.

Frazier's fifth novel, The Trackers, follows a painter during the Great Depression who tracks down a woman with a valuable painting.

Frazier’s work has been translated into over three dozen languages, including Cherokee and has been recognized with the Sue Kaufman Prize of The American Academy of Arts and Letters, the National Book Award, the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize, the Lillian Smith Award, the American Booksellers Book of the Year Award, the James Still Award from the Fellowship of Southern Writers, the Southern Book Award, The Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction, the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award, and others. Frazier also received the North Carolina Award in the field of Literature, the highest civilian award bestowed by the state.

He currently lives part of the year within sight of the building in Biltmore Village where he was born.