Helpful Score: 6
Excellent historical fiction depicting the plight of the American Indian in the years leading up to the Civil War and post war period. Frazier presents the characters of this novel in a human and touching manner. His descriptions of events and the countryside made this part of history very real to me. Highly recommend.
Helpful Score: 6
This book is filled with great description of images of an America long gone. It paints a beautiful picture but I really feel that Frazier fails to make the main character very appealing. It was written from the viewpoint of the main character so maybe the author was just trying to reflect his self assurance but I feel that it made him un-likeable half of the time. Started it last summer and still haven't finished it...just working my way through between books.
Helpful Score: 5
Although Frazier doesn't use a lot of dialogue, he is a master at description. Even though it's fiction, the story reminded me of a memoir.
Helpful Score: 5
A wonderful book from the author of "Cold Mountain". A 12 year old orphan, Will Cooper, is sent into the Cherokee Nation because he is not wanted by his white family. He learns to manage the trading posts and becomes the adopted son of Bear. He teaches himself law and becomes the arbitrator for the Cherokee in Washington and becomes a senator. Between Chief Bear and Will Cooper they amass an incredible amount of land in the Smokey Mountains and become quite wealthy before Indian Removal only to loose most of it when the US Government steps in. And, there's a love story in there.
The Denver Post - "Reading a Frazier novel is like listening to a fine symphony. Take the time to savor it, take in each thought and relish the turn of phrase and imagery of a gifted craftsman"
The Denver Post - "Reading a Frazier novel is like listening to a fine symphony. Take the time to savor it, take in each thought and relish the turn of phrase and imagery of a gifted craftsman"
Helpful Score: 4
I have to admit, I could not get through Frazier's previous work, Cold Mountain, but Thirteen Moons kept me hooked. It's a well written tale of a young man's journey to old age. Life, love, adventures in the mid-1880's, wild western edge of the U.S.
Helpful Score: 3
Could not finish this book, only got halfway through it and it is very unusual for me to not finish a book! It jumped around, and could not keep my interest like Cold Mountain did.
Helpful Score: 2
Great read for Indian lore and wilderness survival. Work of fiction that pulls you into one orphaned boy's survival into manhood. Like his book Cold Mountain, told about everyday people and events.
Helpful Score: 2
I rarely give five stars to a book. But this one deserves it. While it is a work of fiction,, it is a truly a humanistic approach to the retelling of the story of the expulsion of the Cherokee people from the Cherokee nation. It's also a love story-a love for a land, a people and a woman-told from the perspective of a man looking back at his past. Don't miss this one!
Helpful Score: 1
Great story set in the time of Indian Removals in the Appalachians, full of interesting characters, dubious moralities, and actual bits of history. The only downside is that Will Cooper, the narrator and protagonist, is so into himself and his story that I ended up wishing for somebody else's point of view ... particularly that of his lost love Claire, but also that of his mentor Bear. A bit ironic, given the sad theme of a people not getting their due.
Helpful Score: 1
The writing is so great that this is a book to be savored. I can see why it is on many of the "best books of the year" lists.
Very good historical fiction.
There's a lot to like in âThirteen Moons'. First, probably, is the incredible job Frazier does in describing the hardwood forest environment of the Cherokee Territory that encompassed 140,000 square miles over land that later became parts of North Carolina, Tennessee, South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama. When Will Cooper rides through this wild and beautiful landscape, the reader is right there with him, whether admiring it or struggling to survive in it.
Frazier also uses vocabulary that may have the reader searching through obscure word lists â the first sentence of the book declares that âthere is no scatheless raptureâ â but which continually conjures believable vocabulary and language usage of the post-Revolutionary, pre-Western expansion period of U.S. history.
And the background upon which he has placed this fictional memoir is one of the saddest and perhaps most misunderstood events in the clashes between European settlers and the native inhabitants â the dissolution of the Cherokee Territory and the forced relocation of its inhabitants to what eventually became Oklahoma, along the Trail of Tears (which Frazier accurately renders as âthe trail where they criedâ. Like any vibrant and living culture, that of the Cherokee was not monolithic. There were multiple factions and wildly varying responses to the nascent United States' demands; while Frazier doesn't go into great detail (the book would have been 1400 pages instead of 400 if he had done so), he spends enough time on it to get the job done. The job being to portray the attempts of his main character to help his adopted clan stay in their ancestral home.
Less satisfying is the character development of two of the main characters in the book â Claire, the woman Will loves, and the morally ambiguous Featherstone, whose presence in Claire's life makes the budding romance between her and Will tenuous at best and impossible at worst. The problem is that we really never quite understand why Will seems to continue to respect Featherstone; why he doesn't take what would appear to be the logical action when their conflict erupts into the open. Nor are we ever made privy to the reasons Claire keeps walking away from Will,
These problems keep the book from being truly remarkable; even with them, it is a rich and satisfying read.
Frazier also uses vocabulary that may have the reader searching through obscure word lists â the first sentence of the book declares that âthere is no scatheless raptureâ â but which continually conjures believable vocabulary and language usage of the post-Revolutionary, pre-Western expansion period of U.S. history.
And the background upon which he has placed this fictional memoir is one of the saddest and perhaps most misunderstood events in the clashes between European settlers and the native inhabitants â the dissolution of the Cherokee Territory and the forced relocation of its inhabitants to what eventually became Oklahoma, along the Trail of Tears (which Frazier accurately renders as âthe trail where they criedâ. Like any vibrant and living culture, that of the Cherokee was not monolithic. There were multiple factions and wildly varying responses to the nascent United States' demands; while Frazier doesn't go into great detail (the book would have been 1400 pages instead of 400 if he had done so), he spends enough time on it to get the job done. The job being to portray the attempts of his main character to help his adopted clan stay in their ancestral home.
Less satisfying is the character development of two of the main characters in the book â Claire, the woman Will loves, and the morally ambiguous Featherstone, whose presence in Claire's life makes the budding romance between her and Will tenuous at best and impossible at worst. The problem is that we really never quite understand why Will seems to continue to respect Featherstone; why he doesn't take what would appear to be the logical action when their conflict erupts into the open. Nor are we ever made privy to the reasons Claire keeps walking away from Will,
These problems keep the book from being truly remarkable; even with them, it is a rich and satisfying read.
Fantastic book. The audio book narrator is wonderful so I highly recommend the audio book.
Mr. Frazier always grabs my mind and drags me through his tale with never a stumble or slip. Excellent read, friend, enjoy! HootsAnnie
Too much prosing and not enough action for my tastes - for those who enjoy the style it would probably be enjoyable.
Written in the first person, the author traces the life of Will Cooper starting with the time he was bonded at age 12 through ninety-something. The story begins and ends with Will sitting alone ruminating on his life. In between is an eloquently written story that take the reader into the not so glory days of early America.
Frazier writes with an eye to detail that puts the reader in the scene. Whether he is describing the density of a mountain forest, a night of dance in a Cherokee townhouse, or a lover's tryst the reader is a participant. Emotions are so vividly drawn that I felt them along with the characters.
This is a powerful story. I give it ****.
Frazier writes with an eye to detail that puts the reader in the scene. Whether he is describing the density of a mountain forest, a night of dance in a Cherokee townhouse, or a lover's tryst the reader is a participant. Emotions are so vividly drawn that I felt them along with the characters.
This is a powerful story. I give it ****.
This is a story of the life of Will Cooper, as told by himself, at the time period of the forced relocations of the Native Americans in the US.
My favorite thing about this book is Frazier's prose, very poetic, always thought provoking, yet easy to read.
I appreciate books that are real and convincing, not cliche and fake, and Frazier is definitely a writer of the first kind. I can't put into words how convincing he was, for example when writing the main character's thoughts on aging. He made me understand what the weariness of growing old really feels like, and I wonder how someone who wasn't yet sixty could have written so realistic a view on this issue. This is just one of the many descriptions in this book that made me wonder how he created such realistic feelings when he could not have experienced it himself. Another is his telling of what it was like in the Indians' townhouses during their parties.
I really enjoyed the book but have to admit the middle part was difficult to read at times, just because of the gruesome mistreatment of the Indians and the matter-of-fact descriptions in some death scenes.
This story revealed a seemingly legendary man to be a faulty human, completely honest in his reflections. And he is forever in love with a girl/woman who is frustratingly aloof about their relationship.
I would read it again just to listen to the poetry of the story. Beautiful writing.
My favorite thing about this book is Frazier's prose, very poetic, always thought provoking, yet easy to read.
I appreciate books that are real and convincing, not cliche and fake, and Frazier is definitely a writer of the first kind. I can't put into words how convincing he was, for example when writing the main character's thoughts on aging. He made me understand what the weariness of growing old really feels like, and I wonder how someone who wasn't yet sixty could have written so realistic a view on this issue. This is just one of the many descriptions in this book that made me wonder how he created such realistic feelings when he could not have experienced it himself. Another is his telling of what it was like in the Indians' townhouses during their parties.
I really enjoyed the book but have to admit the middle part was difficult to read at times, just because of the gruesome mistreatment of the Indians and the matter-of-fact descriptions in some death scenes.
This story revealed a seemingly legendary man to be a faulty human, completely honest in his reflections. And he is forever in love with a girl/woman who is frustratingly aloof about their relationship.
I would read it again just to listen to the poetry of the story. Beautiful writing.
Good book, thoroughly enjoyed it.
Thirteen Moons (2006) by Charles Frazier is his third book and its another beauty. When 12-year-old Will Cooper is sent off on his own to be an indentured servant running a trading post on the border of the Cherokee Nation, it sets him on a lifelong journey searching for his place in the world and somewhere to call home. He is adopted by a Cherokee chief, Bear, falls in love, wins and loses fortunes, endures the Civil War and meets the likes of Davy Crockett and Andrew Jackson. Fraziers books are so beautifully rendered that the images of the places he writes about stay with you long after the reading of them.
I agree with NY Times reviewer who wrote,"In prose filled with grace notes and trenchant asides, (Fazier) has reset much of The Odyssey in 19th century American, near the end of the Civil War...."
and the San Francisco Chronicle, "A rare and extraordinary book."
and the San Francisco Chronicle, "A rare and extraordinary book."
Well written novel about a very old man who looks back on a remarkable life. Hired out as an orphan, and adopted by Cherokees, he became a backwoods lawyer who fought for Native American property rights. Enjoyable, but I liked the author's Cold Mountain better.
I loved this book
I didn't care for this book at all. It was full of pages and pages of descriptions, but short on plot. It was a book club selection so I plowed my way through it, but hated
every second of it.
every second of it.
The first 1/3 of this book was pretty good but then it went downhill fast. I couldnt even get through the whole book.
very interesting story.
I did not read it. My husband did, expecting a novel as good as Cold Mountain, but this didn't meet his expectations.
