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Winner of the National Book Award for Fiction
An instant, international bestseller, Charles Frazier's debut novel of love and peril at the end of the Civil War was a publishing sensation, the inspiration for an Oscar-nominated blockbuster starring Nicole Kidman and Jude Law, and the subject of an acclaimed opera. Over 20 years later, it stands as an essential, modern classic.
Charles Frazier’s debut novel Cold Mountain made publishing history in 1997 when it stood at the top of the New York Times best-seller list for sixty-one weeks, won numerous literary awards, including the National Book Award, and went on to sell over three million copies. Now reissued for its twentieth year, this extraordinary tale of a soldier’s perilous journey back to his beloved at the end of the Civil War is at once an enthralling adventure, a stirring love story, and a luminous evocation of a vanished land. Adapted into an Oscar-nominated movie starring Nicole Kidman and Jude Law, and a 2015 opera co-commissioned between Santa Fe Opera, Opera Philadelphia and the Minnesota Opera, Cold Mountain portrays an era that continues to speak eloquently to our time.
Praise for Cold Mountain:
A #1 New York Times Bestseller
Winner of the 1997 National Book Award for Fiction
Winner of the 1998 Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction
Winner of the 1998 American Booksellers Book of the Year (ABBY) Award
Finalist for the 1997 National Book Critics Circle Award
"Charles Frazier has taken on a daunting task–and has done extraordinarily well by it . . . a Whitmanesque foray into America: into its hugeness, its freshness, its scope and its soul."—James Polk, The New York Times Book Review
"Charles Frazier's feeling for the Southern landscape is reverential and beautifully composed. He has written an astonishing first novel."—Alfred Kazin, The New York Review of Books
"An astonishing debut . . . The genuinely romantic saga of Ada and Inman is a page turner that attains the status of literature."—Malcolm Jones, Newsweek
"A richly rewarding first novel . . . Wonderfully convincing, finely detailed."—Christian Science Monitor
"Strikingly beautiful . . . In its vivid evocation of a time and place, its steady storytelling momentum, and its unabashed affirmation of a fiction that takes moral choice seriously, Cold Mountain calls to mind Snow Falling on Cedars."—Newsday
"A great read–a stirring Civil War tale told with epic sweep [and] loaded with vivid historical detail."—People
"As close to a masterpiece as American writing is going to come these days."—Fred Chappell, Raleigh News & Observer
"This novel's landscape is finely drawn, full of dark beauty and presentiment, and so are its characters."—The New Yorker
"Measured and graceful . . . savor it. You'll find the characters living in your head for a long time."—Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
"An exciting work of fiction."—The Washington Post Book World
"A rare and extraordinary book . . . heart-stopping . . . spellbinding."—San Francisco Chronicle
"A haunting, beautifully written tale."—Deirdre Donahue, USA Today
"Deserves all the literary prizes that might be lying about."—Kaye Gibbons
"The novel is above all a sustained flight of the imagination."—Daily Telegraph
"Cold Mountain offers compelling glimpses into the surreal horrors of [the Civil War] . . . Inman's gripping odyssey alternates with the story of princess-turned-pauper Ada . . . Civil War buffs, old-time music devotees and love-story suckers–there's something in this book for everyone"—Beth Macy, The Roanoke Times
"Frazier's spare prose is rich in detail and nuance and never misses a beat in evoking the Civil War-era South . . . Open this book to any page and you will find a description, simile, metaphor or word choice to take you breath away."—Eva Ciabattoni, Los Altos Town Crier
"[A] spectacular book . . . About loneliness and isolation and reaching out."—Ann Klaiman, The Salida Mountain Mail
"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 Wager, The Times (London)
"Heartbreakingly beautiful . . . elegantly told and convincing down to the last haunting detail."—John Berendt, author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
"A superb novel–thrilling, richly detailed and powerful. I was spellbound."—Frank Conroy
"This is one of the best books I've read in a long time, and I cried when it was over. It's simply a miracle."—Larry Brown, author of Father and Son
"A parallel narrative: Inman is seriously injured at the end of the Civil War and begins a dangerous journey home, and Ada has struggled to learn firsthand how to keep alive on her family farm. A beautifully written love story, with much to discuss."—Robin Powers, St. Helens Book Shop, St. Helens, OR, Book Sense quote
"A beautiful book, written in exquisite prose."—Kate Atkinson
"Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain is the most impressive and enthralling first novel I have read in a long time. It is a magnetic story, ambitious in scope, with richly developed characters and beautiful evocations of landscape. Though set in an earlier time, it is contemporary in the profoundest sense, with resonance of A Farewell to Arms."—Willie Morris
"Charles Frazier's novel is at once spare and eloquent, a panorama that the author stills long enough to make a portrait–a very evocative portrait of Inman, a soldier who is trying to escape a ruined world. Interspersed with so many moments of sadness, the many moments of compassion seem entirely convincing and are very affecting; when Ada 'wanted to tell him how she had come to be what she was,' the understatement–as it is so often in Cold Mountain–is almost shattering. And then comes the ending."—Ann Beattie
"This novel is so magnificent–in every conceivable aspect, and others previously unimagined–that it has occurred to me that the shadow of this book, and the joy I received in reading it, will fall over every other book I ever read. It seems even more possible to never want to read another book, so wonderful is this one. Cold Mountain is one of the great accomplishments in American literature."—Rick Bass
Charles Frazier grew up in the mountains of North Carolina. He is the author of Cold Mountain, the National Book Award Winner for Fiction, Thirteen Moons and Nightwoods.