`Cold Mountain' Frazier Returns; King, Ford, Eggers: New Novels
By Edward Nawotka
Oct. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Nine years after the blockbuster Civil War story ``Cold Mountain,'' Charles Frazier returns with ``Thirteen Moons'' (Random House), which again features a man searching for his long lost love, this time a squaw he won in a card game. The ponderous white-person-meets-red-person tale depicts a man mulling his role in the fate of the Cherokee as they oppose the belligerent Andrew Jackson and America's greedy western expansion.
October is crammed with big name authors from Dave Eggers to Stephen King.
``The Lay of the Land'' by Richard Ford (Knopf). The third novel featuring real-estate agent Frank Bascombe (the first was ``The Sportswriter,'' the second the Pulitzer Prize-winning ``Independence Day'') finds Frank, now 55, remarried, battling prostate cancer and hosting a bittersweet Thanksgiving dinner as the disputed 2000 presidential election rages in the background.
``Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette'' by Sena Jeter Naslund (Morrow). The author of the well-received ``Ahab's Wife'' creates a lush fictionalization of the life of the notorious French queen, the court of Louis XVI and the machine that made their crowns superfluous, the guillotine.
``What Is the What'' by Dave Eggers (McSweeney's). Eggers's novel, based on the true story of Valentino Achak Deng, depicts the perilous 1,000-mile trek across East Africa of one of Sudan's ``lost boys,'' driven from his home and confronting starvation, violent militants and wild animals before finding sanctuary in the U.S.
``The Echo Maker'' by Richard Powers (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). The difficult, often brilliant author of ``The Time of Our Singing'' weaves a mystery with the story of Nebraskan Mark Schluter, who wakes up from a coma confused about the identity of his loved ones. An anonymous note sends him on a quest to find the truth behind the strange auto accident that put him in the coma.
``Restless'' by William Boyd (Bloomsbury). In this atmospheric espionage-meets-domesticity tale from the author of ``Any Human Heart,'' a frustrated Oxford academic's mother reveals she's a former World War II spy and recruits her daughter to help settle an old score.
``The Light of Evening'' by Edna O'Brien (Houghton Mifflin). A fraught reunion between 78-year-old Dilly, dying in a Dublin hospital and reminiscing over her youth as an immigrant in 1920s New York, and her estranged daughter Eleanora, a controversial novelist living in England, sets up the fiery Irish novelist's meditation on mother/daughter relationships.
``The Uses of Enchantment'' by Heidi Julavits (Doubleday). The year is 1985 and 16-year-old Mary Veal vanishes from her New England prep school only to return a month later claiming she was abducted and abused. The aftermath leads to trouble and soul searching in this captivating third novel by the editor of the literary magazine the Believer.
``Lisey's Story'' by Stephen King (Scribner). A revealing tale that depicts the trials of a writer's widow who ventures to the source of her dead husband's inspiration for his award- winning novels, a bizarre place called Boo'ya Moon, where the real and the imagined commingle.
``One Good Turn'' by Kate Atkinson (Little, Brown). Atkinson's ingenious new comedy-thriller brings back ex-cop and millionaire Jackson Brodie, first seen in the author's ``Case Histories,'' who is plunged into the lives of a motley crew of Edinburgh denizens -- including a crime novelist and a Russian dominatrix -- and deep into the city's underbelly during its Fringe Festival.
``Black Girl/White Girl'' by Joyce Carol Oates (Ecco). In 1975 Minette Swift, a black student at a seemingly tolerant Pennsylvania liberal arts college, dies after a series of racist incidents. Her roommate Genna, the white daughter of a hippie mother and activist father, reconstructs the events.
``Rescue Missions'' by Frederick Busch (Norton). A powerful, final collection of short stories from the late, esteemed author of more than two dozen books, including 1999's memorable ``The Night Inspector,'' spans territory from the war in Iraq to Upstate New York.
``Farewell Summer'' by Ray Bradbury (Morrow). A slender sequel to Bradbury's beloved 1957 young-adult novel ``Dandelion Wine'' revisits Doug and Tom in Green Town, Illinois, in 1928, and finds the boys feuding with the town's old men, believing if they win they will never grow old.
``The End: Book the Thirteenth -- A Series of Unfortunate Events'' by Lemony Snicket (HarperCollins). A secret is revealed in this final volume of the wildly popular children's book series starring the three Baudelaire orphans and their nemesis, Count Olaf.
``The Collectors'' by David Baldacci (Warner). Top thriller writer Baldacci reconvenes his ``Camel Club'' of quirky conspiracy buffs, first seen in the 2005 novel of the same name, to investigate the sudden deaths of the speaker of the House and a scholar in the Library of Congress. The trail leads through Atlantic City to a rogue CIA assassin.
(Edward Nawotka is a critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)
To contact the writer on this story: Edward Nawotka at ink@edwardn.com .
Last Updated: October 2, 2006 10:11 EDT
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If you enjoyed reading The Innocent Man as I did, may I suggest reading the companion book to it. Here is something I wrote about it: Who And Where Is Dennis Fritz, You say after reading John Grisham's Wonderful Book "The Innocent man", Grisham's First non-fiction book. The Other Innocent Man hardly mentioned in "The Innocent Man" has his own compelling and fascinating story to tell in "Journey Toward Justice". John Grisham endorsed Dennis Fritz's Book on the Front Cover. Dennis Fritz wrote his Book Published by Seven Locks Press, to bring awareness about False Convictions, and The Death Penalty. "Journey Toward Justice" is a testimony to the Triumph of the Human Spirit and is a Stunning and Shocking Memoir. Dennis Fritz was wrongfully convicted of murder after a swift trail. The only thing that saved him from the Death Penalty was a lone vote from a juror. "The Innocent Man" by John Grisham is all about Ronnie Williamson, Dennis Fritz's was his co-defendant. Ronnie Williamson was sentenced to the Death Penalty. Both were exonerated after spending 12 years in prison. Both Freed by a simple DNA test, The real killer was one of the Prosecution's Key Witness. John Grisham's "The Innocent Man" tells half the story. Dennis Fritz's Story needs to be heard. Read about how he wrote hundreds of letters and appellate briefs in his own defense and immersed himself in an intense study of law. He was a school teacher and a ordinary man from Ada Oklahoma, whose wife was brutally murdered in 1975. On May 8, 1987 while raising his young daughter alone, he was put under arrest and on his way to jail on charges of rape and murder. Since then, it has been a long hard road filled with twist and turns. Dennis Fritz is now on his "Journey Toward Justice". He never blamed the Lord and soley relied on his faith in God to make it through. He waited for God's time and never gave up.
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