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Published on February 10, 2008

 
Reading: “Thirteen Moons” by Charles Frazier

This novel is a wonderful, atmospheric  story narrated by Will Cooper, who is orphaned and sent off by his caretaker parents to run a trading post right on the edge of the Cherokee Nation. He becomes a wealthy merchant after a whole series of happy accidents, then a lawyer and ultimately a US senator. He is adopted by the Cherokee Indians and goes on to represent their inter¬ests in Washington DC. He fights for the Confederacy in the civil war and meets people like Davey Crockett. But the novel is also a very sad love story. He ‘won’ a girl at cards when we was very young and falls in love with her when he sees her again after some years, but their relationship never real¬ly comes together. All this takes place against the fantastic backdrop of wild, rugged and remote open spaces. It is a gloomy book in some ways, with a melancholic ending, but you have the sense that the narrator has made peace with himself through telling his amazing story. A great book!”