Book Report: NIGHTWOODS by Charles Frazier

Look what I found in my piles of rubble and trash in the Word file! A book review I wrote that I never posted:

NIGHTWOODS by Charles Frazier is a book about the living in North Carolina, although I don’t think the book actually said it was taking place in North Carolina. Because Charles Frazier's other two books COLD MOUNTAIN and THIRTEEN MOONS did take place in North Carolina I assumed it was in the North West section of that state and I feel the geography described in the book proves I was right.

It also paints a southern town good but I think the interactions of the people and their relationships were to the extreme void or off.

Near the beginning of the book the protagonist was raped and she went to the sheriff’s office to report it. The deputy talked her out of pressing charges, saying no one would believe her. And she left. Over three quarters of the book later you learn that the deputy that talked her out of it was her estranged father.

The book has wonderful descriptions of the terrain, plant life, and the general typical local residents.

Many parts of the book have no introductory scene painting so you know what you are in. You have to read a while to adapt to whats going on where at. Quotation marks (“) are not used to separate the actual spoken words from the rest of the sentence - you are on your own to figure it out.




On several instances and items I predicted accurately what would happen later in the story. It wasn’t hard to figure out. I liked Frazier's COLD MOUNTAIN and THIRTEEN MOONS better, but it was still good.