Lorna's Reviews > Cold Mountain

Cold Mountain is the heartbreakingly beautiful and breath-taking debut novel by Charles Frazier purportedly based on the local history and family folklore passed down for generations in his family. Frazier grew up in the Blue Ridge mountains of North Carolina and in the shadow of Cold Mountain. But Cold Mountain was the also debut opera score written by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, Jennifer Higdon, who coincidentally also grew up in Appalachia. We were so excited to be able to attend the World Premiere of Cold Mountain in August 2015 at the Santa Fe Opera just north of Santa Fe. We were there on the night of the final performance when, just as the conductor came on stage, there were huge claps of thunder followed by the skies lighting up the stage as it is an open-air theater with a stunning backdrop of the beautiful Sangre de Christo mountains of Northern New Mexico. It was a superb performance and evening with the impeccable timing of the thunder and lightning to coincide with the opera script and musical score in this unique setting and written to mark the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War.

Now, many years later, I am finally reading the historical fiction novel by Charles Frazier that is so beautifully and elegantly told. Frazier found his inspiration for what he calls his "American odyssey" along with the area's unique history. Frazier has said that his family has lived in the hills of North Carolina for over two-hundred years. At the core of this story is a tale of survival. It is the story of a Confederate soldier and deserter in 1865. We witness Inman's long and perilous journey as he walks home to his beloved Ada Monroe at the close of the Civil War. He is witness to the vast devastation suffered in the South as the Confederates are close to defeat. The book unfolds in alternate chapters with Inman and his struggles versus Ada and Ruby and their struggles to revive her father's failing farm after his death. Ruby has had to struggle to survive from a young age but with her Native American roots, she has a connection to the land and shares her wisdom with Ada who works along side her tirelessly. There is a bond that forms between these two women. At the stunning conclusion of this Odysseus-like tale, Inman and Ada have to confront the transformation that has occurred in each of their lives.

". . . . You will be living fitfully. Your soul will fade to blue, the color of despair. Your spirit will wane and dwindle away, never to reappear. Your path lies toward the Nightland. This is your path. There is no other."

"Monroe would have dismissed such beliefs as superstition, folklore. But Ada, increasingly covetous of Ruby's learning in the ways living things inhabited this particular place, chose to view the signs as metaphoric. They were, as Ada saw them, an expression of stewardship, a means of taking care, a discipline. They provided a ritual of concern for the patterns and tendencies of the material world where it might be seen to intersect with some other world. Ultimately, she decided, the signs were a way of being alert, and under those terms she could honor them."