Thirteen Moons by Charles Frazier

Description

Bibliographic Details

• Author: Charles Frazier
• Title: Thirteen Moons
• Publisher: ‎ Random House; First Trade Edition (October 3, 2006)
• Language: ‎ English
• Format: Hardcover w/Deckle Edge – 422 pages‏
• ISBN-10: ‎ 0375509321
• ISBN-13: ‎ 978-0375509322
• Item Weight: ‎ 1.60 pounds
• Dimensions: ‎ 6.4 x 1.5 x 9.3 inches
• Book Condition: Used – Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good (minimal wear on bottom corner of spine)
• Edition: First Trade Edition – (This rare and vintage book is a perfect addition to any bibliophile's collection.)

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 (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.