Thirteen Moons

Like Cold Mountain, this took me awhile to appreciate. But once I did, wow...there is so much beauty in words, landscape and life study to enjoy.

A sweeping epic of a man's life from the early 1800s to the end of the century in the American South, Frazier describes the harsh realities of a young and sometimes immature government as it expands its territory and faces its own human rights abuses. He does this through the life of Will Cooper, a bound boy on his own since his eleventh year and a man who eventually becomes a Chief, a lawyer, a senator, a Colonel and a vast land owner. His life is a lonely one, without family and without Claire, the love of his life. He compensates by devoting his life to the Cherokee and Bear, a clan Chief, who adopted him in his teenage years. While other clans are forced off their eastern mountain land to move west onto reservations, Will keeps them in their mountain home with his evasive lawyering skills which earns him much esteem but also much criticism. In the end, he ends up nearly as alone as when the book began.

Read this patiently. Enjoy its honesty and perspective. It is quietly satisfying.