Cold Mountain Audio Cold Mountain


The season's breakout novel

Review by Sukey Howard

It's hard to believe that "Cold Mountain" is Charles Frazier's first novel, so well is it conceived and written. Inman, a wounded Confederate soldier, sickened by the wanton waste and carnage of war, leaves his hospital and his army to return to his home in the Carolina mountains and to his beloved Ada. His harrowing passage is an odyssey worthy of Odysseus himself. While Inman endures his long journey home, Ada, the overeducated, underskilled daughter of a well-to-do Charleston preacher, now alone in the backwoods, must make a passage equally difficult, from city girl to country woman maintaining a working farm. Many richly drawn characters enter both their lives and add much to the tale, but Inman and Ada remain at its romantic core. Dylan Baker offers a fine performance of a book that you won't want to end.