Charles Frazier Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Anthologies

Charles Frazier
Charles Frazier was born November 4, 1950 in Asheville, North Carolina. He grew up in the mountains of North Carolina in both Franklin and Andrews. He graduated from the University of North Carolina in the year 1973. he earned his MA from Appalachian State University during the mid-1970s, and got his PhD in English from the University of South Carolina in 1986.

He taught English, first at University of Colorado Boulder, then English at North Carolina State University. His wife convinced him to quit his job in order to work on his novel full time. Kaye Gibbons, his friend and a fellow North Carolina author, presented his unfinished novel to her literary agency, which led to his novel getting published.

His first novel, “Cold Mountain”, was the inspiration for the 2003 Oscar winning movie directed by Anthony Minghella which starred Jude Law, Nicole Kidman, and Renee Zellweger.

“Cold Mountain” is the first stand alone novel and was released in 1997. “Cold Mountain” is about a soldier’s perilous journey back to his beloved near the end of the Civil War. At once a love tale and a harrowing account of one guy’s long walk home.

Based on family stories passed down by Frazier’s great-great-grandpa and local history, it’s the tale of one wounded Confederate soldier, named Inman, who walks away from the ravages of the war and back at home to Ada, his prewar sweetheart. His odyssey through the devastated landscape of the soon-to-be-defeated South interweaves with Ada’s struggle to try and revive her dad’s farm, with the help of Ruby, an intrepid young drifter. While their long separated lives start converging at the war’s close, Ada and Inman face the vastly transformed world that they have been delivered.

Charles reveals insight into human relations with the land and the dangers of solitude. He also shares with the great 19th century novelists this keen observation of a society undergoing a change. This recreates a world gone by that speaks to our own time.

“Cold Mountain” won the National Book Award for Fiction Best Book in the year 1997.

“Thirteen Moons” is the second stand alone novel and was released in 2006. An orphan named Will Cooper (twelve years old) is given a key, a horse, and a map and gets sent on a journey through the uncharted wilderness of the Cherokee Nation.

Will’s a bound boy, obliged to run a remote Indian trading post. While fulfilling his lonesome duty, he finds a dad in Bear, this Cherokee chief, and he gets adopted by him and his people, developing some relationships which ultimately forge Will’s character.

All the while, his love of Claire, the captivating and enigmatic charge of powerful and volatile Featherstone, are going to forever rule Will’s heart. In a voice filled with both yearning and humor, Will tells of a lifelong search for home, the hunger for adventure and fortune, the rebuilding of a trampled culture, and above all an enduring pursuit of passion.

“Nightwoods” is the third stand alone novel and was released in 2011. A dazzling novel of love and suspense set in small town North Carolina during the early 1960s.

Charles Frazier puts his remarkable gifts in the service of a taut, lean narrative while losing none of the virtuosic storytelling, transcendent prose, and insight into human nature which have made him one of the most beloved and celebrated writers in the world. Now, with his brilliant portrait of Luce, a young woman that inherits her murdered sister’s troubled twins, he’s created his most memorable heroine.

Luce, before the children came along, was content with the reimbursements of the rich Appalachian landscape, deciding to live apart from the tiny community around her. However the coming of the kids changes it all, cracking open her solitary life in hopeful, difficult, and dangerous ways.

“Varina” is the fourth stand alone novel and was released in 2018. Charles Frazier returns to the place and time of Cold Mountain, vividly bringing to life the devastation and chaos of the Civil War.

With her marriage prospects limited, Varina Howell agrees to marry Jefferson Davis, the much-older widower, with whom she expects a life of security as a Mississippi landowner. He instead pursues a career in politics and eventually gets appointed president of the Confederacy, which places Varina at the white hot center of one of the darkest moments in American history, culpable regardless of what her intentions were.

Her marriage in tatters, the Confederacy falling, and the country divided, she and her kids flee from Richmond and travel south all on their own, now fugitives with “bounties on their heads, and a whole nation in pursuit”.

Intimate in its detailed observations of a woman’s tragic life and epic in its power and scope, it’s a novel of an American war and its aftermath. The book is ultimately a portrait of a woman that comes to realize that complicity carries with it some consequences.

“The Trackers” is the fifth stand alone novel and was released in 2023. Val Welch, hurtling past the downtrodden communities of Depression-era America, travels westward to the rural town of Dawes, Wyoming. Through a stroke of some good luck, he has landed a New Deal assignment to create a mural that represents the region for their new Post Office.

John Long (a wealthy art lover) and Eve (his wife) have agreed to host Val at their sprawling ranch. Intrigue and rumors surround this couple: Eve left behind her itinerant life riding the rails and singing in this western swing band. Long holds some shady political aspirations, however he was once a WWI sniper, and his right hand is this mysterious older cowboy, and is a vestige of the violent old west. Val soon finds himself entranced by their lives.

Eve, one day, flees home with one valuable painting with her, and Long recruits Val to hit the road, tasked with tracking her down. Journeying from ramshackle Hoovervilles to the swamps in Florida to San Francisco nightclubs, Val’s quest for Eve narrows, and he soon dredges up secrets which could spark formidable changes for each of them.

One Response to “Charles Frazier”

1. Ben Hinson: 7 months ago

   I am an avid fan of Charles Frazier and have read all his books (Cold Mountain twice and watched the movie). When my wife and I visit her sister and brother-in-law in the NC mountains (Zirconia), I hope one day to meet Mr. Frazier in Hendersonville or Ashville, but I suspect he values his privacy. I truly admire his writing, his syntax is amazing. I hope he will write more novels.

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