April 8, 1999
This book won the 1997 National Book Award. I just finished listening to this entire book on audio cassette. I enjoyed reading the book so much earlier this year, I couldn’t resist a second helping. It is the kind of adventure book that really really holds my attention. It has lots of hardship and survival stories mixed up with interesting social commentary on the "olden days."
It is a love story too. It is set in Civil War times, in or near the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. The book alternately traces the actions of two main characters: A young man named Inman and a lovely young woman named Ada Monroe.
As the book opens, Inman has just recovered from a nearly fatal neck wound. He has been at war for four years, and he is thinking of writing to his girl back home. He doesn’t know if she’ll have him back, though, because he feels he has become a different person so troubled in mind and spirit by the things he’s seen and done in the war. Almost on a whim, he suddenly leaves his hospital early one morning and sets out on foot toward his home on Cold Mountain.
Ada lives in Black Cove, on Cold Mountain. She is the sole heiress to the place since her father, the preacher, has just died. She is a city girl (raised in Charleston), but she decides to stay in Black Cove despite the fact she knows nothing about farming or making a living on her own. A kindly neighbor sends her a helper. Ruby strikes a bargain to help Ada without pay as long as she can share in the bounty of what they produce on the farm and doesn’t have to empty nobody’s slop jar but her own.
As an "outlier," who has deserted his Confederate Army, Inman’s life is in real danger, and he gets into a lot of trouble along his journey back home. Ada and Ruby do surprisingly well to fix up Black Cove and make preparations for a fierce winter ahead. The stories that make up the progress toward the goals of each main character are told with really fine realism.
I was constantly intrigued by the interesting stories, the rich vocabulary, and the intensity of the novel as it moves to its conclusion. The ending will have to be left to you to find out. It is definitely worth the trouble. Meanwhile, I’ll be watching for another book by Charles Frazier.
© 1999 Herman Fontenot
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My name is Herman, and my e-mail address is: kfonteno@flash.net.
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