by Charles Frazier
A Confederate soldier deserts and walks home to reunite with the woman he loves.
Reviewed by: Paul A. Paterson
Inman lies in a Civil War hospital seriously wounded both in body and spirit. Disillusioned by the experience of war, the Confederate soldier decides to forgo further involvement and walks away from the hospital and the war intending to return home to Cold Mountain. As he travels, trying to elude bounty hunters, Federalist soldiers and general riff-raff, the vision of his girlfriend, Ada, helps pull him through difficult times. Meanwhile, Ada finds herself in charge of the family farm following the death of her father, Munroe. Entirely unsuited for the task, Ada faces the prospect of slowly starving to death before she meets Ruby, an independent and wise young woman who is everything Ada is not -- strong, capable and determined. With her help, the farm begins to recover and hope is restored.
In alternating chapters, Frazier leads Inman through the Confederate United States as the Civil War draws to its inevitable conclusion. As the society implodes, local thugs rule the day, killing indiscriminately and targeting deserters like Inman specifically. These brutal, violent acts are set in sharp counterpoint to the exhausting task of reclaiming fallow land and clearing orchards undertaken by Ada and Ruby. It seems the work is never done, and Ada, who is more at home in Charleston society than burying cabbages for winter storage, struggles through the days driven by her seemingly tireless companion.
This is no easy read. Frazier's narrative is thick with description and long on simile, but it is always compelling. The brutality of a society in collapse drives the story, and Inman's single-minded determination to return home to Ada proceeds at a steady pace. He encounters people throughout his trip, some of whom help, others that conspire to return him to the fighting in Petersburg, and the ups and downs of his odyssey keep readers wading through the, at times, difficult prose.
With a feature film starring Nicole Kidman, Jude Law, Renee Zellweger and Nathalie Portman in the works, readers may want to check out the book version first. It is well worth the effort to uncover this complex story of devotion, violence and betrayal.
Click here to buy this book, or read more about it at Amazon.com: Cold Mountain
Copyright © by Paul A. Paterson, 2003
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