Thirteen Moons: A Novel (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. When Frazier's debut Cold Mountain blossomed into a National Book Award–winning bestseller with four million copies in print, expectations for the follow-up rose almost immediately. A decade later, the good news is that Frazier's storytelling prowess doesn't falter in this sophomore effort, a bountiful literary panorama again set primarily in North Carolina's Great Smoky Mountains. The story takes place mostly before the Civil War this time, and it is epic in scope. With pristine prose that's often wry, Frazier brings a rough-and-tumble pioneer past magnificently to life, indicts America with painful bluntness for the betrayal of its native people and recounts a romance rife with sadness. In a departure from Cold Mountain's Inman, Will Cooper narrates his own story in retrospect, beginning with his days as an orphaned, literate "bound boy" who is dispatched to run a musty trading post at the edge of the Cherokee Nation. Nearly nine mesmerizing decades later, Will is an eccentric elder of great accomplishments and gargantuan failures, perched cantankerously on his front porch taking potshots at passenger trains rumbling across his property (he owns "quite a few" shares of the railroad). Over the years, Will—modeled very loosely, Frazier acknowledges, on real-life frontiersman William Holland Thomas—becomes a prosperous merchant, a self-taught lawyer and a state senator; he's adopted by a Cherokee elder and later leads the clan as a white Indian chief; he bears terrible witness to the 1838–1839 Trail of Tears; a quarter-century later, he goes to battle for the Confederacy as a self-anointed colonel, leading a mostly Indian force with a "legion of lawyers and bookkeepers and shop clerks" as officers; as time passes, his life intersects with such figures as Davy Crockett, Sen. John C. Calhoun and President Andrew Jackson. After the Civil War, Will fritters away a fortune through wanderlust, neglect and unquenched longing for his one true love, Claire, a girl he won in a card game when they were both 12, wooed for two erotic summers in his teen years and found again several decades later. In the novel's wistful coda, recalling Claire's voice inflicts "flesh wounds of memory, painful but inconclusive"—a voice that an uncertain old Will hears in the static hiss when he answers his newfangled phone in the book's opening pages. The history that Frazier hauntingly unwinds through Will is as melodic as it is melancholy, but the sublime love story is the narrative's true heart. (Oct. 3)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From The Washington Post

Charles Frazier is an intelligent, occasionally witty author who writes incredibly long-winded, sentimental, soporific novels. His first, Cold Mountain, published nine years ago, was the most unlikely bestseller since Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All (1989), by his fellow North Carolinian Allan Gurganus, and the most improbable National Book Award winner since John O'Hara's Ten North Frederick half a century ago. Now Frazier weighs in with Thirteen Moons, which manages to be even longer and even duller than Cold Mountain. No doubt it too will be a huge bestseller.

That Frazier's success parallels Gurganus's is purely coincidental, but it's just about impossible not to remark upon the oddness of the coincidence. As a rule, the American book-buying public has only a limited appetite for Southern-fried fiction, yet Frazier and Gurganus somehow have tapped into it. They deal (Frazier somewhat more skillfully than Gurganus) in what a North Carolina newspaper editor of my long-ago acquaintance used to call shucks-'n'-nubbins, which is loosely defined as tiny ears of corn. Frazier's corn is anything but tiny -- more than 400 pages of it in the case of Thirteen Moons -- but it's corn all the same.

Reading Frazier is like sitting by the cracker barrel for hour after hour and listening to an amiable but impossibly gassy guy who talks real slow, says "I reckon" a whole lot and never shuts up. His novels have little structure and not much in the way of plot; in Cold Mountain he gave us the wounded Confederate soldier, Inman, limping his way back to his gal, Ada, in the North Carolina mountains, and in Thirteen Moons it's the ancient Will Cooper reminiscing about his nine decades and his Cherokee buddies and the gal, Claire, whom he managed to love and lose. He is a far less interesting man than Frazier obviously believes him to be, which is a little surprising because he's based on a very interesting historical figure.

"Will Cooper is not William Holland Thomas," Frazier says in an author's note, and then coyly adds, "though they do share some DNA." Actually, they share a whole lot. William Holland Thomas was born in North Carolina in 1805, was almost immediately orphaned, worked as a boy in a general store in the mountains, taught himself the law, worked to secure the right of the Cherokees to remain in their territory as Andrew Jackson sought to drive all Indians westward, served in the state senate and organized a company of Cherokee soldiers on behalf of the Confederacy. All of which is exactly what Will Cooper does in Thirteen Moons; where fact and fiction part is that Thomas married and had children while Cooper remains single, and Thomas's mental condition gradually deteriorated after the Civil War while Cooper remains alert, if rather tired, to the novel's end.

In other words, in Thirteen Moons Frazier essentially has fictionalized history. Nothing wrong with that: happens all the time. But the novel provides less imagination and invention than readers are likely to expect; it reads more like a dutifully researched (check out that author's note) graduate school paper than a work of fiction. It also is chock-a-block with homespun aphorisms that aren't exactly full of original wisdom: "One of the few welcome lessons age teaches is that only desire trumps time," and "Grief is a haunting," and "Writers can tell any lie that leaps into their heads," and "Our worst pain is confined within our own skin," and "We are not made strong enough to stand up against endless grief," and so forth. To be sure Frazier's folksy wisdom is a good deal easier to swallow than Gurganus's, but it's folksy all the same and not especially wise.

The novel is narrated in the first person. Early on, Will tells us that "I was always word-smitten" and that he kept journals for years, though the novel obviously is a reconstruction of the journals rather than the journals themselves. It begins with the "bound boy" that Will became at the age of 12, when his uncle and aunt sent him off to be "a shopkeep" for seven years, apprenticed to an elderly gentleman who owned "a trade post out at the edge of the [Cherokee] Nation." He makes his way through the mountain forests on his own, encountering adventures similar to those that beset Inman in Cold Mountain -- Frazier does like to send his men out on interminable treks that often seem to be headed nowhere -- until he finally arrives at the store, which "was hardly bigger than the parlor room of my aunt's house" and provided with "woefully little . . . stock from the outer world."

Will is a go-getter, though, and soon enough the store is busy, at least by mountain standards. Will runs it for four years, then is able to buy it after the owner's death. By this point, he has become something of a fixture in the Indian community, especially after he befriends an old Indian named Bear, "possessor of the deepest and sharpest mind to which I have ever been exposed." At once the reader is in the presence of the Noble Savage, though a bit later Frazier tries to wriggle out of that one:

"It is tempting to look back at Bear's people from the perspective of this modern world and see them as changeless and pure, authentic people in ways impossible for anybody to be anymore. We need Noble Savages for our own purposes. Our happy imaginings about them and the pure world they occupied do us good when incoherent change overwhelms us. But even in those early days when I was first getting to know Bear and his people, I could see that change and brutal loss had been all they had experienced for two centuries. . . . It was not any kind of original people left. No wild Indians at all, and little raw wilderness. They were damaged people, and they lived in a broken world like everybody else."

True enough, but it's also true that Frazier sentimentalizes the Cherokee even as he tries to keep his distance from the Noble Savage cliché. When Bear offers "to stand as your father" -- i.e., to step in for the father whom Will lost before he was born -- it's a true Noble Savage Moment: "If you were born or adopted into a clan, you were Cherokee. Everybody else was an outsider. So when Bear made his offer it was not only between him and me, it was also a deal with his whole people and thus a matter of identity. For them and for me and for him." Or, as Annie Oakley puts it in "Annie Get Your Gun," "I'm an Indian Too."

Corny? Absolutely. It had best be acknowledged, though, that Frazier's sentimental streak is almost certainly what has gotten him to where he is. It comes naturally to him, and readers seem to recognize this. However one may feel about the books that make their way to the upper reaches of the fiction bestseller lists, one thing is true of just about all of them: They are written with the utmost sincerity. Their authors mean what they write. They aren't trying to jerk readers around, and they aren't condescending to them. Readers can sense when they're being patronized, and they rarely fall for it. Whatever else there is to be said about Frazier's fiction -- and in my view there's not much -- its sincerity is unimpeachable.

Which makes it doubly odd that he tries to have it both ways. In Cold Mountain, after Inman and Ada have their ecstatic and endlessly delayed reunion, Frazier pulls up short by killing Inman off in the closing paragraphs. Something similar (though scarcely as violent) happens between Will and Claire toward the end of Thirteen Moons. Even as Frazier is tugging away at our heartstrings, he's trying to show how tough and realistic he can be, but it feels strained and unpersuasive; my own hunch is that he thinks literary respectability can be earned only if sentimentality is served up with a hard-hearted twist, but it's the sentimentality that's believable, not the twist.

Will readers flock to Thirteen Moons as they did to Cold Mountain? Who knows? Frazier's new publisher has a ton of money invested in him and will be pulling out all the stops. One thing is certain: Thirteen Moons is going to be putting a whole bunch of people to sleep.

Copyright 2006, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks (June 5, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812967585
• ISBN-13: 978-0812967586
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (179 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #39,863 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Charles Fraizer helps keep Cherokee language alive!, August 1, 2007

By	Anonymous (Illinois USA) - See all my reviews

I'd never read Cold Mountain, but picked up Thirteen Moons because of the story related to the Cherokee nation. The book itself is a fictionalized rendition of the life and times of Will Thomas, known as Will Usdi (little Will) by the Cherokee. I was impressed by how much Fraizer got right about Cherokee life during those times, and how well the book was written. While the story end for the main character is dissatisfying, I think that was the point, because that chapter in Cherokee history and in the life of the actual Will Thomas was, to put it mildly, dissatisfying and tragic. But here's something to know about this exemplary author of Thirteen Moons: He worked with the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Nation on parts of his novel, and then turned around and set up a grant to assist the Nation in translating it into the Cherokee syllabary, so that it could be used to teach Cherokee to become fluent in the language. Cherokee itself (particularly the Kituwah dialect) is a language that is in danger of becoming extinct, and is an integral part of Cherokee identity. To know one's language is to more firmly be grounded in one's identity. Anyway, the Museum of the Cherokee Indian in Cherokee, NC, central to the Qualla Boundary of which Fraizer writes has translated copies of his chapter on the Removal from the book Thirteen Moons. On one side of the page is the Cherokee in Syllabary form, and on the opposite page it's there in phonetic spelling. Each page is labeled to correspond to the English version from the original book. This is the first major publication in Cherokee since the Bible. As a person of Cherokee heritage working these past few years to learn my own language from the Midwest, this was a blessing, to see our language in print. Charles Fraizer ought to win national acclaim for both this fantastic book and for his efforts to revitalize the Cherokee language. He really thought of giving back to the community in a positive and enduring way. I've heard that there may be a movie, and would hope that whoever bought the rights to it will be as considerate and thoughtful in actively including the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Nation in their production and direction.

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Four stars for writing, two stars for story line..., November 22, 2006

By	Cynthia K. Robertson (beverly, new jersey USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Thirteen Moons: A Novel (Hardcover)

I greatly enjoyed Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier, so I looked forward to reading his latest, Thirteen Moons. Although there is much to like in Thirteen Moons and Frazier is a talented writer, the story wasn't always very engaging and the plot fizzled at the end. In fact, I would rate it a four for writing and two for story line.

Will Cooper finds himself an orphan at age twelve, and his aunt and uncle don't care to raise him. They sign him over to serve as the shopkeeper of an Indian trading post on the edge of the Cherokee Nation. Young Will received a unique education--one he would have never gotten living on a farm. A Cherokee chief by the name of Bear eventually adopts Will and Will becomes part of their tribe. Frazier follows Will as he becomes an entrepreneur, a lawyer, a senator, a colonel and a white chief. He also covers a half-century, that includes the Trail of Tears and the Civil War.

Frazier has a homey but descriptive writing style and I often found myself going back to reread many sentences. In describing his caretaker May, Will observes "Her skin is the color of tanned deerhide, a mixture of several bloods--white and red and black--complex enough to confound those legislators who insist on naming every shade down to the thirty-second fraction." When the Baptists give Bear a Bible, Bear "judged the Bible to be a sound book. Nevertheless, he wondered why the white people were not better than they are, having had it for so long. He promised that just as soon as white people achieved Christianity, he would recommend it to his own flock." The background on the Cherokee Indians and their culture was especially interesting.

Unfortunately, after truly enjoying this book for the first three-quarters, the story seems to die. I didn't understand the love-hate relationship between Featherstone and Will and I was especially confused about Will's love affair with Claire Featherstone. In terms of the plot, I can't decide if the problem is mine or if Frazier's editor was AWOL in the editing process. Also, the plot was too descriptive and too deliberate. While reading, I couldn't help thinking that Larry McMurtry could have done more justice to this story.

I can't say that I'm sorry that I read Thirteen Moons. However, I don't feel that I could recommend it to others.

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A terrific sophomore effort by Frazier, October 11, 2006

By	Robert Busko (Waynesville, NC USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Thirteen Moons: A Novel (Hardcover)

Thirteen Moons marks only the second novel by Charles Frazier. Coming nine years after his blockbuster hit Cold Mountain, Thirteen Moons is also a story of mountain people but this time prior to the Civil War.

The ninety year old main character, Will Cooper, relates his long and interesting life through a series of stories. As a small child he is orphaned and eventually "bound" to the owner of a small trading post near the Cherokee reservation. Through hard work and diligence he ends up running the store and eventually buys the operation upon the owners death. At the age of 12 he wins the love of his life in a card game. He fights in the Civil War on the side of the confederacy while leading a regiment of natives Americans. He interacts with national legends such as Davy Crockett and Andrew Jackson.

Frazier doesn't admit that Will Coopers character is loosely based on the real exploits of William Holland Thomas, but he does admit that they might share some "DNA".

One of the hallmarks of Frazier's writing style is his eloquent, almost poetic prose. Even when the story lags a bit, as all stories like this do from time to time, reading his sentences, paragraphs, and pages is a joy. He reminds me a bit of another North Carolina author, though less well known, Ron Rash. Both authors have a love of the language and that is evident in how they write. Both also manage to catch of meter of how mountain folk talk and how they think. These gifts only come from having the region in your vains.

Without giving away anything, the characters that he provides us in Thirteen Moons are marvelous and provide a rich tapestry....a background and foreground on which the story plays. Perhaps the most notable is the Cherokee Bear.

The story does seem to ramble in places but this is not a critical error. You'll love reading Thirteen Moons and you'll remember the story and characters for years to come