Charles Frazier

As the years ticked by without a follow-up to Charles Frazier’s surprising (and fantastic) National Book Award-winning 1997 novel, Cold Mountain, the obvious conclusion was that Frazier was feeling daunted by both the wild success of his debut and the expectations created by the whopping advance he received for a second manuscript. Thirteen Moons doesn’t read like the work of a man who was in the least daunted, but it does feel like a novel that took almost ten years to write. That’s not a criticism. If Cold Mountain was Frazier’s Odyssey, then its successor is his Iliad. And, improbable as it seems, it’s an even better book. Teeming with history, heartbreak, and a host of memorable characters, Thirteen Moons also acts as a scathing indictment of the U.S. government’s treatment of Native Americans. Frazier is a master at narrative voice, and his elegant, careful descriptions of the natural world are as vivid as they are beautiful.