Varina by Charles Frazier

Description

Bibliographic Details

• Author: Charles Frazier
• Title: Varina
• Publisher: ‎ Ecco; First Edition (April 3, 2018)
• Language: ‎ English
• Format: Hardcover ‏w/Deckle Edge – 356 pages
• ISBN-10: ‎ 0062405985
• ISBN-13: 978-0062405982
• Item Weight: ‎ 1.30 pounds
• Dimensions: ‎ 1.2 x 6.4 x 9.5 inches
• Book Condition: New / Like New – Excellent
• Dust Jacket Condition: Excellent
• Edition: First Edition

Synopsis:

Sooner or later, history asks, which side were you on?

In his powerful new novel, Charles Frazier returns to the time and place of Cold Mountain, vividly bringing to life the chaos and devastation of the Civil War.

Her marriage prospects limited, teenage Varina Howell agrees to wed the much-older widower Jefferson Davis, with whom she expects the secure life of a Mississippi landowner. Davis instead pursues a career in politics and is eventually appointed president of the Confederacy, placing Varina at the white-hot center of one of the darkest moments in American history—culpable regardless of her intentions.

The Confederacy falling, her marriage in tatters, and the country divided, Varina and her children escape Richmond and travel south on their own, now fugitives with “bounties on their heads, an entire nation in pursuit.”

Intimate in its detailed observations of one woman’s tragic life and epic in its scope and power, Varina is a novel of an American war and its aftermath. Ultimately, the book is a portrait of a woman who comes to realize that complicity carries consequences.

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.