Historical Fiction · EpicA wounded Confederate soldier walks home through the last months of the Civil War to the woman he loves
Cold Mountain
A wounded soldier walks home through the last months of the Civil War
Inman, a Confederate soldier, is recovering in a hospital in Raleigh, North Carolina, and has lost faith in the war. After a fellow patient dies, he slips away to return home to Cold Mountain, where Ada Monroe lives. Ada is a minister's daughter who has moved to a mountain farm and does not know how to run it until a young woman named Ruby arrives and restores it. As a deserter, Inman faces robbery, dangerous companions and the Home Guard, who are hunting deserters.
More about this book
Who
W. P. Inman, a wounded soldier, Ada Monroe, a minister's daughter, and Ruby, who helps Ada work the farm.
World
North Carolina in the last months of the Civil War.
What makes it different
Chapters alternate between Inman's journey and Ada's life on the farm, and the trip is often compared with the Odyssey. Frazier has said the real W. P. Inman was his great-granduncle.
Feel
Slow, lyrical and epic. It won the 1997 National Book Award for Fiction and became a 2003 film with Jude Law, Nicole Kidman and Renee Zellweger.
Page count and cover shown for: Selected edition
Behind the book
Frazier has said the real W. P. Inman was his great-granduncle. He took great liberties with Inman's life, as his acknowledgments say, and drew inspiration from John V. Hadley's memoir Seven Months a Prisoner.
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- Cold MountainWikipedia