Product Description
This magnificent novel by one of America’s finest writers is the epic of one man’s remarkable journey, set in nineteenth-century America against the background of a vanishing people and a rich way of life.

At the age of twelve, under the Wind moon, Will is given a horse, a key, and a map, and sent alone into the Indian Nation to run a trading post as a bound boy. It is during this time that he grows into a man, learning, as he does, of the raw power it takes to create a life, to find a home. In a card game with a white Indian named Featherstone, Will wins – for a brief moment – a mysterious girl named Claire, and his passion and desire for her spans this novel. As Will’s destiny intertwines with the fate of the Cherokee Indians – including a Cherokee Chief named Bear – he learns how to fight and survive in the face of both nature and men, and eventually, under the Corn Tassel Moon, Will begins the fight against Washington City to preserve the Cherokee’s homeland and culture. And he will come to know the truth behind his belief that “only desire trumps time.”

Brilliantly imagined, written with great power and beauty by a master of American fiction, Thirteen Moons is a stunning novel about a man’s passion for a woman, and how loss, longing and love can shape a man’s destiny over the many moons of a life.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 3.5 based on 176 reviews)

An enlightening read

I had read Cold Mountain and when Frazier did another book I had to get it. Like Cold Mountain, it is sad. I suppose that what happened to the Indians being routed out of their homes and moved west was just a story until you read this heart breaking tale of what happened. Frazier makes all the details come alive. Certainly worth reading.
November 04, 2008

Rich with words yet sparse with meaning...

I remember reading `Cold Mountain' and just being completely immersed in this world created by Charles Frazier. Even in a novel like `Cold Mountain', which more times than not seemed overly stuffed and meticulous, his writing style and passion for description made the effort to get through it well worth it. You can say whatever you like about the substance provided within his novels, but there is no denying that his writing ability is nearly flawless.

That said; while `Thirteen Moons' never feels as stuffed as `Cold Mountain', it also never feels as gripping. This is probably due to the fact that the vast array of characters within `Cold Mountain' helped hold our interest, and while `Thirteen Moons' is not void of character development, it lacks the charm and grace that `Cold Mountain' elicited with each new person introduced.

So, in other words; while I was swept away with Frazier's writing skills, I was left a little empty with his lack of real character development.

`Thirteen Moons' tells the story of Will Cooper, a young man who recounts his life starting from a young age where he was orphaned and sold as a `bound boy' running a trading post on the edge of the Cherokee Nation. Beings that Will was far from illiterate, he educated himself and became a self-taught lawyer and an aid to his Cherokee friends. He made allies and enemies within neighboring tribes and found himself in a twisted love triangle with the beautiful Claire. He built lasting relationships with the teddy-bear like Bear and the vengeful tyrant Featherstone. We get a tragically beautiful depiction of the `Trail of Tears' as Will himself takes part in it, and we see his transition from White outsider to Indian neighbor.

All that said; it just never really sits right.

Frazier writes in such rich language, such beautifully descriptive dialog and flow that you can't help but `want' to read what he has to say. `Thirteen Moons' as a whole though feels a little too hollow, as if it is missing something. Frazier almost appears to be writing a whole lot about very little. I think this really has to do with the fact that we are meant to believe that the core of this novel revolves around a love story between Will and Claire, but we never really get to grasp who Claire is. He meets her in a barn, shares a near intimate moment with her and then pines for her the rest of his life, grasping at every possible encounter yet we never really understand why. His relationship with Bear is far more interesting and far more moving in my humble opinion.

So, I cannot say that this is a bad novel, or one that I wish I had never read; and I most certainly will read Frazier's next novel, but I can say with certainty that this is not as engaging or as rewarding as `Cold Mountain'. While I had issues with the occasional clutter within the pages of `Cold Mountain' (an issue that the film adaptation gloriously corrected) I can honestly say that at times a little too much is far greater than too little (ironic, isn't it) and in `Thirteen Moons' we are sadly given too little.
October 14, 2008

Dreadful!

One really wonders just what happened here. Although the first 1/4 of this book is tolerable--if farfetched--the remainder is simply bizarre. It is rare for me not to finish a book but this was ridiculous! What a waste of time. Did enjoy Cold Mountain, tho.
September 28, 2008

A story that invites you in told in rich language.

I really enjoyed this novel for both the story and for the rich prose. In Thirteen Moons, as well as in Cold Mountain, the stories of the characters are interesting and take place in front of a unique historical backdrop. However, what intrigued me in both books was the rich language. It does sound stilted at times to the modern ear (some reviewers have mentioned that), but what I believe those critics fail to recognize is that Frazier has expertly captured an authentic tone of the language of the southern mountains in both his books.

The Appalachians were this country's first frontier, and there is a unique rhythm and syntax that evolved in the melting pot of the mixing cultures and isolation of that frontier in the 1700s and 1800s, which is rapidly being lost in our modern tongue, along with all other regional linguistic idiosyncrasies. The poetry of the mountains is most recognized in the songs, but the language of those ballads and stories is also present in the telling of Frazier's stories, and he has captured the beauty of that unique linguistic tradition in his prose amazingly well.
July 18, 2008

An Immersive Historical Fiction

As in Cold Mountain, when Frazier lets you into the room of the past, he quietly closes the door behind you. You are there, you are immersed. And he lets you think you understand what is important about that which is unfolding before you - in Thirteen Moons, for example - it is the life story of the frontiersman Will Cooper, told in first person, from age 12 to 90, living through the entire 1800's within the Eastern Cherokee Indian Nation in North Carolina and making something of a success of it. This is a romance too of, yes again, passionate unrequited love, with the man being, again, left largely in the dark, but only a bit moreso than the woman. The quietly played-out background drama, the uprooting of the entire Cherokee Nation, leading to their Removal and the Trail of Tears, only slowly dawns on the reader. It is truly gentle way to experience history - through anecdotal daily life, experiencing the waves of change and the clear effects of the villains, e.g., Head of State Jackson and heroes, e.g., the philosophical Bear.

To me the weak point here is that we never really get to understand at all two of the main characters - Claire and Featherstone. The novel starts and ends with Claire, and yet her story is left as a mysterious as it began. OK, I can take it and work with this - but Frazier does such a good job with Will I wish he would have given us the full circle of the three lives.

July 03, 2008

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