Product Description

A soldier wounded in the Civil War, Inman turns his back on the carnage of the battlefield and begins the treacherous journey home to Cold Mountain, and to Ada, the woman he loved before the war began. As Inman attempts to make his way across the mountains, through the devastated landscape of a soon-to-be-defeated South, Ada struggles to make a living from the land her once-wealthy father left when he died. Neither knows if the other is still alive.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #37647 in Books
• Published on: 2003-12-08
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 448 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Charles Frazier's debut novel, Cold Mountain, is the story of a very long walk. In the waning months of the Civil War, a wounded Confederate veteran named Inman gets up from his hospital bed and begins the long journey back to his home in the remote hills of North Carolina. Along the way he meets rogues and outlaws, Good Samaritans and vigilantes, people who help and others who hinder, but through it all Inman's aim is true: his one goal is to return to Cold Mountain and to Ada, the woman he left behind. The object of his affection, meanwhile, has problems of her own. Raised in the rarified air of Charleston society, Ada was brought to the backwoods of Cold Mountain by her father, a preacher who came to the country for his health. Even after her father's death, Ada remains there, partly to wait for Inman, but partly because she senses her destiny lies not in the city but in the North Carolina Blue Ridge.

Cold Mountain is the story of two parallel journeys: Inman's physical trek across the American landscape and Ada's internal odyssey toward an understanding of herself. What makes Frazier's novel so satisfying is the depth of detail surrounding both journeys. Frazier based this story on family history, and in the characters of Inman and Ada he has paid a rich compliment to their historical counterparts. Cold Mountain is, quite simply, a wonderful book.

Review
'A remarkable first novel, a romance of love, of friendship, of family, of land. Frazier has inhaled the spirit of the age and breathes it into the reader's being' -- Erica Wagner, The Times 'Cold Mountain is a heartbreakingly beautiful story, elegantly told and utterly convincing down to the last haunting detail' -- John Berendt 'Full of graphic, unflinching details, striking concrete images and lyrically precise descriptions of the natural world, this wonderful novel presents the terrible, discordant reality of life in a war. Profoundly moving, it raises all the big questions' -- Christina Patterson, Observer

Review

'A beautiful book written in exquisite prose'

'A remarkable first novel, a romance of love, of friendship, of family, of land. Frazier has inhaled the spirit of the age and breathes it into the reader's being'

'Magnificent...this wonderful novel presents the terrible, discordant reality of life in a war. Profoundly moving, it raises all the big questions'

Customer Reviews

One of the best books I have ever read
Traces the parallel lives of the two main characters through the American Civil War. More than just a love story, it is simply absorbing. I could not put it down. The author uses language to maximum effect and I felt transported. It is easy to empathise with such well developed characters. I recommend it to everyone.

Evocative, timeless, tender and brutal. A real winner!
Set in a lost world, wilderness existence is tenderly recreated. The rhythm and turn of the seasons in the Blue Ridge Mountains are skillfully juxtaposed with the brutality of the American Civil War. Cold Mountain had me spellbound from first to last.

Beautiful story
A beautiful story of heartbreak and broken times, COLD MOUNTAIN is by far the best Civil War story to come out of the U.S. While I love Gone With the Wind, it can't hold a candle to "Mountain."

What is so galling about the story and the characters are not the the north's treatment of the south during this era, but rather the treatment of Southerners against Southerners. I was reminded more than once of The Color Purple and the same one-on-one treatment. I would highly recommend this chilling tale of survival, along with the novel Bark of the Dogwood---funny and knowing like Pychon or Sedaris, yet set in the modern-day South.