When Ada reached the story’s conclusion, and the old lovers after long years together in peace and harmony had turned to oak and linden, it was full dark. The night was growing cool, and Ada put the book away. A crescent moon stood close upon Venus in the sky. The children were sleepy, and morning would dawn as early and demanding as always. Time to go inside and cover up the coals and pull in the latch string.
acknowledgments
I would like to offer thanks to several people for their support during the writing of Cold Mountain. I am happily in their debt. My father, Charles O. Frazier, preserved the family stories and shared them with me. He set me on Inman’s trail, and his detailed knowledge of western North Carolina history and culture was helpful throughout. Kaye Gibbons was generous with her advice and encouragement; she took my writing seriously before I did and offered a model of hard work and commitment. W. F. and Dora Beal provided me with a wonderful writer’s retreat in the North Carolina mountains, where much of the book was written; the long view from the porch is the book’s presiding spirit. Leigh Feldman prodded me along when I bogged down and helped me find the story’s direction. Elisabeth Schmitz’s thoughtful, sensitive, and enthusiastic editing significantly improved its final shape.
A number of books were helpful in developing the cultural and historical background for the novel, these in particular: Robert Cantwell, Blue-grass Breakdown: The Making of the Old Southern Sound (1984); Richard Chase, Jack Tales (1943) and Grandfather Tales (1948); Walter Clark, Histories of the Several Regiments and Battalions from North Carolina in the Great War (1901); Daniel Ellis, Thrilling Adventures (1867); J. V. Hadley, Seven Months a Prisoner (1898); Horace Kephart, Our Southern Highlanders (1913); W. K. McNeil, Appalachian Images in Folk and Popular Culture (1995); James Mooney, Myths of the Cherokee (1900) and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees (1891); Philip Shaw Paludin, Victims (1981); William R. Trotter, Bushwhackers: The Civil War in North Carolina, Vol. II, The Mountains (1988).
Finally, I would like to offer apologies for the great liberties I have taken with W. P. Inman’s life and with the geography surrounding Cold Mountain (6030 feet).
Charles Frazier, Cold Mountain
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