Anytime I’m asked who my favorite author is, I answer without hesitation or thought: Charles Frazier. Read his magnificent book Cold Mountain and you’ll become an instant fan as well.
Frazier’s ability to connect the reader with each of his characters through exceptionally well-defined scenes and just the perfect word is unmatched by any of today’s authors. He transports the reader from the comfort of their sofa to the horror of a Civil War battlefield. He displays with graphic reality the utter disgust and filth of Civil War field hospitals and to the danger and loneliness of a distant farm in the deep in the mountains of North Carolina.
Not only was I able to feel the rugged road that Inman walked upon, but Frazier brings alive for every reader the flowers that Ada Monroe smelled in the field. For whole chapters I was lost in the danger that his characters faced and wondering what would happen next.
The screen adaption starring Jude Law, Nicole Kidman and Renee Zellweger was an amazing story as well. The book is so much better, but the story overall is just one that most people can relate to.
Cold Mountain was based upon Frazier’s great-great uncle, also named Inman, who fought for the Confederacy during the American Civil War. It was a five year writing project to bring the novel into fruition, and what an incredible job he did on the final work.
Frazier’s second novel is Thirteen Moons, which follows one North Carolina man and his relationship with the Cherokee Indians. This was a good book, but paled in comparison to Cold Mountain. Frazier continues his incredible ability to hook a reader into the story and transport them right into the middle of the action. But this book didn’t do it for me. It’s hard to explain why, it just seemed like it was an incomplete story.
His third book, Nightwoods, is due for release in late September 2011.