Thirteen Moons
ISBN: 0375509321 | Pages: 422 (hardcover)
Author: Charles Frazier
I imagine a lot of authors know of this as the book that landed Charles Frazier (of Cold Mountain fame) an eight-million-dollar advance - which may just be the largest ever for a novel.
And maybe I shouldn’t want to read something for that reason alone. The numbers weren’t even supposed to be released, apparently - his editor Kate Medina told Entertainment Weekly she hopes “what people talk about is the book.” Still, it’s awfully hard for any writer to ignore, and when the first chapter arrived unexpectedly as an expensive-looking insert in Publisher’s Weekly I looked it over with some interest.
Then my local bookstore had a signed copy in stock. It’s a well-known fact that I’m completely unable to resist an autographed book.

Thirteen Moons follows protagonist Will Cooper over a period of around ninety years. I’m going to refrain from giving a detailed plot analysis this time, but basically:
- Will is forced to leave home at the age of twelve, in late-18th-century America, to work at a trading post.
- In time, he befriends the Cherokee chief knows as Bear.
- I’d say the book’s larger conflict is unwavering love for Claire.
One of the more interesting descriptions I’ve heard for this book is “frightfully literary.” It did do some unconventional things (like using dashes instead of quotation marks to indicate speech), but I didn’t find anything about it frightful - or even dull, as plenty of people have suggested.
No; the only flaw, from my point of view - if you consider it a flaw - is that this is a very sad novel.
I’m not talking about the end and I’m not talking about a tearful scene or two. I’m talking about the whole damn book, from page one. Even in those brief moments of bliss when Will and Claire are together and all is well in the world, it’s bittersweet. There’s always this shadow hanging over it, this sense that none of it will last.
Don’t understand me? See this excerpt:
Decades later in life, deep into aching middle age, I held deeds to most of the land I then saw, all the way to the longest horizon, stacks of papers saying all that summer country was mine. But of course, all the paper in the world was nothing in comparison to those three days.
That’s one of the better examples, but the paragraphs around it had a similar tone - and there are plenty of similar passages elsewhere in the book, too.

See also:

Agree with me? Don’t? Leave a comment if you’ve read Thirteen Moons - I’d love to hear what you thought of it.
George Clooney’s new movie - uh, I mean, Ocean’s Thirteen (YouTube:
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