So just a few days after we blogged about an Ashvegas columnist’s review of Charles Frazier’s new book “thirteen moons,” we ran across Esquire magazine’s take. Let’s just say it’s not pretty.
In it’s one column “Big Book of the Month,” Esquire notes that Frazier was paid $8.25 million for his one-page book idea, which works out to getting paid about $20,000 a page for the 400-page book.
The story, built around a white orphan who grows up to become chief of a Cherokee clan, has almost no dialogue and is narrated by a bitter old man. Esquire calls the book “plodding,” with a faint love story as the only thing going for it.
“Plodding through Thirteen Moons, one admires its scope and versimilitude. But this tale is meant to be an elegy – both for a woman and an epoch of history. And in the end, you probably won’t miss either. You’ll mourn only that bygone era when reward and result bore a closer correlation.”
Ouch.
2 Comments
Naim, Cold Mountain was slow-going, but we warmed to it and ended up loving it. There’s no way that Thirteen Moons will live up to the expectations of Cold Mountain. But as a lover of this region, we can’t wait to see how Frazier depicts the forced removal of the Cherokee. i say that New Yorker review – yeah, they didn’t like it much.
I found Cold Mountain to be hard-going. I didn’t finish it. I also read a rather negative review of Thirteen Moons in the New Yorker. Did you like Cold Mountain?
Naim Peress