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Nightwoods

3.55 of 5 stars 3.55 · rating details · 4,985 ratings · 1,096 reviews

The extraordinary author of Cold Mountain and Thirteen Moons returns with a dazzling new novel of suspense and love set in small-town North Carolina in the early 1960s.

Charles Frazier puts his remarkable gifts in the service of a lean, taut narrative while losing none of the transcendent prose, virtuosic storytelling, and insight into human nature that have made him one of...more

Hardcover, 272 pages

Published September 27th 2011 by Random House (first published 2011)

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Jul 19, 2012 Lou rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: october-reading, arc

The Nightwoods from the title you could misinterpret this to being a paranormal or horror story, it's not it's about a Human struggle. This author of Cold Mountain knows all about settings in stories he himself grew up in the mountains of North Carolina. He places you in a beautiful wilderness in this tale with some modest characters that are happy to struggle along and get to make big changes in their lives.
The authors sentences are laden with some intricate writing and describes away beautiful...more The Nightwoods from the title you could misinterpret this to being a paranormal or horror story, it's not it's about a Human struggle. This author of Cold Mountain knows all about settings in stories he himself grew up in the mountains of North Carolina. He places you in a beautiful wilderness in this tale with some modest characters that are happy to struggle along and get to make big changes in their lives.
The authors sentences are laden with some intricate writing and describes away beautiful environments and some very grim goings on.
Luce finds herself in recipient of Two orphaned twins from her rather once problematic deceased sister. These kids need help from their auntie, they need love, they have seen and received their fair share of violence. Luce finds she needs to help and this is the gem of the story the outcome of these souls fated together and the danger that arises as a dark shady past comes along and tries to interfere with their progress. Luce gets to find love in the progression of this new found family bonding together, a man of wealth is he which she could be in need of.
This is not a long novel and just the right length, a story of Love, loss, will and courage.

"That night in bed, WLAC playing low and not helping much, Luce couldn't sleep for thinking about the black hole. She didn't spend a second wandering what creatures lived down there. One look and she knew nothing lived there. Life would only be in the way. The black hole was before life and beyond life. If you dipped a ladle of that water and drank it, visions would come so dark you wouldn't want to live in the world that contained them. You'd be ready to flee toward the other darkness summed up in death, which is only distant kin to the black hole and the liquid it cups. A darkness left over from before Creation. A reminder of a time before light. Before these woods and these mountains and earth and even the sun, there was a black hole filled with black water. The black held no reference to the green world around it. And what did the green world mean if the black was and forever had been?"

Review and book trailer also here (less)

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Oct 09, 2011 Jo Anne B rated it 5 of 5 stars

"No denying the ugliness. But swear you're done and move forward."

"Lola's only nugget of wisdom to her little daughters was Never cry, never, ever."

This wasn't Cold Mountain but there was surely a lot of coldness to the characters in these mountains. What I liked the most about the book was the author's literary prose and detailed writing that made you feel like you were there in the woods and mountains with these characters feeling what they were going through. Such beautiful writing makes for...more "No denying the ugliness. But swear you're done and move forward."

"Lola's only nugget of wisdom to her little daughters was Never cry, never, ever."

This wasn't Cold Mountain but there was surely a lot of coldness to the characters in these mountains. What I liked the most about the book was the author's literary prose and detailed writing that made you feel like you were there in the woods and mountains with these characters feeling what they were going through. Such beautiful writing makes for a great read.

Luce, having been neglected and mistreated by her own mother, was forced to become one when she had to take care of her murdered sister's two children. Luce's mother Lola was certainly no role model and was instead unloving, mean, and cold-hearted. She was beautiful and Luce inherited her looks but with it came the price of having a mother who just ups and leaves because she never loved her two daughters. But she makes a go of it because she couldn't let the kids be separated through fostering and adoption.

But these children have been abused by Bud, their mother's boyfriend, whom they witness killing their mother. When Luce gets them they are mute and savages that like to kill animals and burn down houses. Gotta give Luce a lot of credit for sticking it out and actually doing a pretty good job of being a mother when she never had any intentions of doing so in her life, let alone to someone else's kids with their history. She still has her good looks, but recedes into a lodge hidden away from the public life to be on her own. She was outcasted from society and held at fault when a school burned down because she was at her phone company job at the time but was just raped by her former teacher and was unable to connect the phone calls to get help from the fire company to save the building. So she went into the mountains to live in solitude. Nothing you can do about the past, so move on. This was the mantra of many of the characters in this book and what led to their coldness.

But then a man from her past enters her life when Stubblefield inherit's his father's lands that contains Luce's lodge. He had a crush on her in high school and remembers her striking looks when she competed in a beauty pageant. He has to tread water around Luce though, like she does with the kids, or else he would scare her away. Just like the kids, she has built a wall of defense around her that needs to be chipped away slowly and cautiously. He gains her trust when Bud returns to the area and tries to come after the kids looking for his money that her sister Lily hid from him before he killed her.

Bud has always been obsessed with blood since attending church sermons revolving around God's blood that was spilled saving humankind. He wore a necklace with a shark's tooth that cut him and made him bleed, reminding him "that sharks die if they stop swimming forward-useful for every single misstep in life." He also had a bleeding heart tatoo reminding him that "everybody dies". He was not a good person and never held down a job and come unto a lot of money from robbing a house. He had never been the man of the house because Lily always made more money them him so this made him feel worthy. But she hid his money when he was passed out drunk and didn't live to regret it.

There was nothing new in this book. The plot and charcters have been done before. But not written with such clarity and depth as this. The author did a fabulous job turning a done before story into a new one with splendid and capturing prose. I wish I could read books like this everyday, if they only existed. This was part thriller and suspense keeping you moving forward just like the characters preferred.(less)

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May 01, 2013 Connie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: southern-lit, challenge13, challenge2013, ylto-alphabet-challenge, usa, kindle-fire, king-kong, favorite-books, book-vipers-a-z-challenge

Because Luce and Lily's parents are self-indulgent and not concerned with the welfare of the girls, the children have to fend for themselves. When the truant officer comes to the house to find out why Luce has not been attending school, he asks her if she wants to be like "them," indicating her parents. Because that is the last thing she wants, she sets an alarm clock in her head so she can get Lily and herself to school each day. Everyone thought that Luce would be the one to leave the town and...more Because Luce and Lily's parents are self-indulgent and not concerned with the welfare of the girls, the children have to fend for themselves. When the truant officer comes to the house to find out why Luce has not been attending school, he asks her if she wants to be like "them," indicating her parents. Because that is the last thing she wants, she sets an alarm clock in her head so she can get Lily and herself to school each day. Everyone thought that Luce would be the one to leave the town and travel, but Luce stayed put while Lily left town.

Lily married and had a set of twins, Delores and Frank, but her husband died. Unfortunately, she fell for Bud Johnson, who is a repeat criminal and violent man. He and a friend rob a store, and Lily hides the money from him, trying to keep it safe from his gambling. When he sobers up, he goes on a violent rampage beating her and demanding to be given his money now. Then Lily walks in on him doing something unspeakable to one of the twins, and Bud kills her in the ensuing fight. The children are witnesses to this violent murder of their mother and retreat within themselves, refusing to speak. They become more animal than human. Luce is their only living relative, so they go live with her.

Luce, however, has been fighting demons of her own. She was raped by a man she knew, but although she reported the incident to the deputy, nothing was done about it. She has spent her adult life being a caretaker of a deserted, derelict lodge outside of town. The isolation suits her just fine. But now she has two small children to care for, and she is feeling out of her depth.

In the meantime, because of a mistrial, Bud has been released from prison. Realizing that there is no statute of limitations on murder, he is determined to find the children who witnessed the murder and silence them for good after he finds out where his money is. He is certain the children know where their mom put his money. So Bud is on the hunt for the twins, and the suspense builds. Luce and the twins are sitting ducks in the lodge by the lake with no one to help them.

This is a tightly written psychological suspense story. The characters are alive and charming, and you feel as if you actually know them after a chapter or two. Frazier has a true gift for language and characterization. The language feels authentic 1960s Appalachian, but never forced or contrived. It is just a joy to read.

Cold Mountain has been one of my favorite books since its publication, and now Nightwoods is also one of my favorites although it is a very different sort of book. I look forward to Frazier's next book.(less)

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Aug 12, 2012 Hansen Wendlandt rated it 3 of 5 stars

Frazier’s first three novels focus, respectively, on lost love and found friendship, wisdom and the ills of progress over a long life, and an unsympathetic world that “does not punish or reward but cleanses all bones equally.” (259) Despite, however, these different eras, plots and situations, there are some hints and themes that echo through his writing: pioneer morality, the power of time, the inevitability of loss, the resiliency of nature, quick glimpses of spirituality… What is unique about...more

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Jul 08, 2012 Tony rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: firstreads-wins, u-s-lit

Plot-driven, so one can hurry through to the end. Having gotten away with a cinematic ending in Cold Mountain, Frazier made this entire slim volume made-for-TV. The characters are ready-made, from central casting, so there's no need to explain why they are the way they are. The dialogue has moments but no great scenes like Inman and the Goat Woman from CM.

Frazier has become of a type, along with Richard Russo: readable if predictable stories, a workshop feel. If a gun is introduced in the first...more

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Jun 30, 2012 Linda rated it 4 of 5 stars

I wanted to love this book because I still consider Frazier's "Cold Mountain" to be one of my top reads. But I became bogged down fairly quickly with this book because of sentence fragments and choppy sentences and also because of the lack of consistency with dialogues. I don't mind no quotes for dialogues but this book had dashes sometimes and some dialogues just had "he said" and "she said" inbeded in paragraphs. There are several points of view in this book and lots of changing scenery which...more

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Jul 07, 2012 Angie Lisle rated it 5 of 5 stars

A modern literary story, written like an old mountain ballad, about a dysfunctional family in Appalachia.

Through the beginning of the book, I was worried that this story wouldn't end well. Too many of the mountain ballads have sad endings and the prose is very reminiscent of a ballad (even if Mr. Frazier, unlike his character Maddie, didn't use the words that we still grow up hearing: "Yonward and thither. Hither. Sward").

Too many kids die in the ballads, so it was a relief to reach the end an...more

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Jun 18, 2012 Ariel rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: appalachia

I picked this up on a whim at the library. I was intrigued by it's stellar review on Entertainment Weekly and I remember enjoying Cold Mountain.

This novel takes place in 1960's Applachia. These people are poor, as in sucking pig spine poor. I draw the line at eating meat that's unidentifiable. The whole tone of the novel is run down, desperate.

Luce is a woman who has checked out of the world. A violent incident sends her from cheerleader to town recluse overnight. Intruding into Luce's insulated...more

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Oct 01, 2011 Kerry Hennigan rated it 3 of 5 stars

Luce lives as a semi-recluse looking after a falling-down lodge on the shore of a lake in the mountains of North Carolina - until her dead sister's mute kids are entrusted to her care by the state. Unknown to Luce or the authorities, having been found not guilty of the murder of their mother, their father Bud is looking for them - the only witnesses to what really happened the day their mother died.

The narration, told in the present tense, is at times tough and gritty, and at others has a touchi...more

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Sep 26, 2011 Megan (Book Brats) rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-my-mother-read-for-me, arc, historical, contemporary, first-reads

Nightwoods is a story that evokes emotion from the reader, both through the story itself and the authentic voice of the narrator. Luce is a woman who has been cast aside by society and by herself, left on the fringe. She comes to be the caretaker of her murdered sister’s twins and from here, the story evolves into an engrossing tale that hooks the reader and refuses to let them go until the very last page.

I would describe Luce as the type of person I would personally want to hang out with, if sh...more

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Feb 12, 2012 Pam rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: goodreads-giveaways

Nightwoods by Charles Frazier 5/5 stars
I received the book for free through Goodreads First Reads.

I really, really liked this book.

I won't recount the story here, you can read it numerous places. Frazier's pace was almost ... almost ... too slow for me. It took me awhile to care much about Luce, but it then took him awhile to reveal her in detail. She's a loner ... maybe even a recluse ... who left town in disgrace to be the caretaker of a delapidated and closed resort in the mountains of Tenne...more

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Dec 14, 2011 Jane rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: modern-literature

While I frequently find more modern literature about dysfunctional families well, too dysfunctional, I enjoyed every quirky character in this book, Frazier's beautiful prose, and the journey of really not having a clue of where the story was headed. A great read on so many levels.

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Sep 12, 2011 Robin rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Soon receiving the book for free through Goodreads First Reads!! Yay!

It always takes a while to read a Charles Frazier novel. The writing style is very dense and filled with lines I didn't want to forget, though I will of course. This is not a page-turner or a thrill ride. It is more of an arduous adventure. In the end, the adventure was worthwile. Frazier's writing style is excellent.

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Apr 17, 2013 Elizabeth rated it 4 of 5 stars

Okay, you have to get past the writing which is in fragments and has sparse dialogue. But I urge you to stick with this one, and when you are getting a stomach ache, don't peek at the ending! Luce is the protagonist, a young woman who is suddenly saddled with raising her nephew and niece (who are twins) since their mother (Luce's sister) was murdered by her husband,stepfather to the children. He has gotten away with it in the judicial system and is on the trail of the children who he feels has s...more

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Apr 08, 2013 Althea rated it 4 of 5 stars

I read Charles Frazier’s first novel Cold Mountain many years ago and loved it. I remember being very impressed by his wonderful descriptions of the mountains and the cold.
Nightwoods is just as good.
His introductory paragraph is riveting.
I thought at first that Frazier had branched into Sc-Fi with his description of the behaviour of the stranger children. It was rather like the beginning of a Stephen King novel. These are human children, however. Luce has become foster mother to her sister’s t...more I read Charles Frazier’s first novel Cold Mountain many years ago and loved it. I remember being very impressed by his wonderful descriptions of the mountains and the cold.
Nightwoods is just as good.
His introductory paragraph is riveting.
I thought at first that Frazier had branched into Sc-Fi with his description of the behaviour of the stranger children. It was rather like the beginning of a Stephen King novel. These are human children, however. Luce has become foster mother to her sister’s twins. The twins have witnessed their Lily’s murder at the hands of their step-father and they have been so traumatised that they have stopped speaking. They are able to communicate effortlessly with one another, though, as twins often can.
This is a powerful story with a cast of unusual characters. Luce is a young woman who is caretaker of a remote mountain lodge beside a beautiful lake. It should be the perfect place for the children to recover from their ordeal. But, as Frazier says, they have a love of fire “above all elements of creation”. He tells us that “tiny cavemen on Benzedrine couldn’t have made fire faster...” Luce, who has no experience of children, finds it difficult to combine the right blend of firmness with affection. The children have been badly damaged and she doesn’t want to injure them further by being too strict.
Bud, the children’s step-father, has “a smart and ruthless old white-haired bastard of a lawyer “who is able to get his client off the hook. The prosecution’s inexperienced, young lawyer is no match for him. It isn’t long before Bud comes after his step-children, believing that they know the location of some money he stole.
There is a sense of wildness at every level of this story.
There is the wildness of the mountains and the lakes, where bears and rattlesnakes are commonplace. There is the wildness of “the stranger children” who are not responsible for their anti-social behaviour. There is the wild violence of men like Bud and Lit, the deputy sheriff of the small town nearby. Luce has chosen to live a solitary existence in the lonely wilderness of the mountains, forests and lakes. She has tried to cope with her past by escaping from it, but, when the children are thrust upon her, the line between past and future begins to blur and she is forced to confront much of what has gone before as well as what is to come. She has to protect the twins and give them the chance of a better, more normal life. Fortunately, she meets a man who appreciates her strength of character.
Frazier writes with great originality and a delightful quirkiness. Nightwoods is the sort of book the reader needs to linger over. But it is also an exciting page-turner – you feel compelled to race on ahead to see what happens to the fleeing children as Bud pursues them and as Luce pursues him...
I am looking forward to reading his second novel Thirteen Moons and to re-reading Cold Mountain.
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Feb 28, 2013 Shawn rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: my family, Dotty, Katie & David

I love Nightwoods, best book I have read so far in 2013. This is a book that I stretched out the last few days because I never wanted it to end. I loved Cold Mountain, so I was so excited when I rented this one from the library! I think the only thing I can do to follow Nighwoods is to go and read Cold Mountain again.
Frazier glorifies the country. I don't really claim to BE country, myself; I mean, I sort of make fun of my mother, and her ancestors, because although she lives in Illinois, she's...more

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Nov 24, 2012 Jim rated it 1 of 5 stars

With “Cold Mountain” and “13 Moons” etched in my memory, I started “Nightwoods” by Charles Frazier with great expectations. As I finished it, all I could say was: “I’m glad this one is done and behind me.”

“Nightwoods” is much like the 2010 movie “Winter Bones,” which my wife and I watched as I took a break from the closing pages of “Nightwoods.” Slow moving, frustrating, meandering with seemingly little destination in mind. No, one is in no way based on the other.

“Nightwoods” takes place in most...more With “Cold Mountain” and “13 Moons” etched in my memory, I started “Nightwoods” by Charles Frazier with great expectations. As I finished it, all I could say was: “I’m glad this one is done and behind me.”

“Nightwoods” is much like the 2010 movie “Winter Bones,” which my wife and I watched as I took a break from the closing pages of “Nightwoods.” Slow moving, frustrating, meandering with seemingly little destination in mind. No, one is in no way based on the other.

“Nightwoods” takes place in mostly North Carolina, in and near a tiny, rural, backwoods town on a lake at the base of some mountains in the 1950s. Mostly poor, ignorant people, uneducated, many living a life amid murder, bad marriages, illegal liquor and drugs. Oh, that’s “Winter Bones,” too, except the setting is the Missouri Ozarks in maybe the 1960s, 70s or, hell, today.

Speaking of meandering, sorry.

“Nightwoods” is occasionally rich in some fine writing, a la a trademark of Frazier. Some passages just draw you back to read them again, but many, in this book just have you wanting to be done. This is not a book I’d recommend for someone looking for suspense.

This book is mostly about a really messed up family: Lit, the father is a World War II vet and deputy sheriff, who likes his alcohol and drugs and is divorced from his wife, Lola, a drunkard who upped and disappeared to Florida; Lily, a daughter who was murdered by her no-account husband Johnny, aka Bud, who was acquitted of the killing; and Luce, short for Lucinda, who had retreated to a life as caretaker of an old lodge after being raped by her ex-high-school chemistry teacher.

Luce is “awarded” Lily’s two traumatized kids, Frank and Delores, by the state. Bud returns home as a stranger with a few axes to grind, and a no-account man named Stubblefield has to come to grips with his failing life when he becomes, by inheritance, owner of the closed-down lodge and of the area’s tavern, which serves up illegal liquor in a dry county while the cops keep their eyes shut.

Stubblefield falls in love with Luce, who gradually falls in love with him, and they build their relationship while trying to help the two kids and survive the terror of Bud.

I guess one gets a taste of filthy poor and uneducated backwood folks in 1950s’ North Carolina, but I don’t see that I got anything out of reading this book. If you like Frazier, settle for rereading “Cold Mountain” or “13 Moons” and wait for Frazier to offer up another winner.(less)

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Oct 02, 2012 Thomas Holbrook rated it 4 of 5 stars

I experienced a sense of deep sadness when I finished Mr. Frazier’s most recent book for two reasons: 1) I had grown fond of the characters and setting of this tale and 2) he has no other books (that I can find) on the horizon. The wait for the next visit to Western North Carolina will be too long in coming (even if it were next week). When it does arrive, however, it will be met with the excitement akin to meeting a returning family member who has been on an extended trip. Such is the ability...more I experienced a sense of deep sadness when I finished Mr. Frazier’s most recent book for two reasons: 1) I had grown fond of the characters and setting of this tale and 2) he has no other books (that I can find) on the horizon. The wait for the next visit to Western North Carolina will be too long in coming (even if it were next week). When it does arrive, however, it will be met with the excitement akin to meeting a returning family member who has been on an extended trip. Such is the ability of this author to create a story, people it with “real” characters, and place it in an area of rugged beauty with sufficient description to allow the readers’ imagination to paint a lush picture of the setting of their own imagining.
Nightwoods is set in the early 1960’s, a time of innocence on the brink of huge change. With the exception of the villain, all of the characters are identified by their “Christian” name, a technique that heightens the feeling of being in a small town and gives near immediate intimacy. The story is told in alternating points of view related in the third person, in so doing, Mr. Frazier brings the reader into the mind of his characters with the added benefit of enough distance to get a clear picture of where the character “is” relative to the story. The six months the book covers in the events of this hamlet is short enough not to lag but long enough for the reader to become involved with this community.
Luce is almost a hermit, living in the lodge of an abandoned resort in the mountains of North Carolina. She enjoys the solitude, connection with nature and the freedom she has as caretaker of this property. When her sister, Lily, is murdered, Luce is left with caring for her sister’s children - Delores and Frank - twins who were damaged before they witnessed their mother’s death - who use fire in an attempt to alleviate the pain they experience. How she protects these children from the murderer, seeks to help them heal and how to reconnect with people who are safe and care for them fills the pages of the novel with breath and the tension needed to make the words “live.”
In the process of watching Luce tend to her charges, the reader learns the reasons for her isolation, as her niece and nephew are not the only broken members of this family, and glimpse the truth of the reality that we help others heal from the depths of our own woundedness. Luce does not feel up to the task of raising the children, wants nothing more than to be left alone in the beauty of a decaying landscape yet she finds the internal resources to absorb their pain and being to heal from her own. When she faces the most horrific of her fears that strength is proven to be made of steel. Afterward, when the question arises as to whether or not the threat has “been taken care of,” she can sit quietly with the question of that ambiguity because she knows she possesses the strength to face what she must for those she loves and whom love her.
This book reaches to the core of family, community and the hope that, in some way, the “simple days” can be regained. It also reveals that the “simpler time” was only not that simple. People still hurt one another, betrayal was common yet people still chose to love others, take responsibility for family and live a life that is full. All while, somehow, facing down threats to a stalemate and living with the probability that those demons would reappear. Now, as then, we get up when we fall down and learn how not to fall in the same way again.
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Aug 17, 2012 Laura rated it 3 of 5 stars

There was plenty of suspense in the story to keep me engaged, but I didn't love this book for a few reasons: 1) Some characters (Bud, Lit, and Lola )were despicable to such an extreme that it was almost comical at points 2) The dialogue was written in a very awkward fashion 3) The description of the natural surroundings was so detailed it became tedious (I ended up skimming the first paragraphs of some chapters because that's where Frazier would predictably put the description of the "vertical"...more

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Aug 13, 2012 Penny Young rated it 3 of 5 stars

Charles Frazier proves once again that he knows something about those deep wooded mountain places that are not only off the highway but clearly off the track. These are characters that think and live in ways that leave curious about their chances for survival. Is it really possible to be like this and find your way in the world. Perhaps it takes a backwoods type of life to produce the skills that enable these characters to exist in such singular solitude, to embrace aberrance with total acceptan...more

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Aug 11, 2012 Pat rated it 3 of 5 stars

I loved the writing in this book. The descriptions of Frazier's beloved North Carolina Appalachian mountain regions are breathtaking and vivid. Luce, the heroine, is a recluse living with the owner's permission in an abandoned hunting lodge. She is portrayed in haunting prose that makes her very real. When her murdered sister's two children come to live with her, she is forced to relinquish tranquility to take care of these almost-feral twins. Her sister's murderer is Luce's brother-in-law, exon...more

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Aug 01, 2012 Kay rated it 5 of 5 stars

I loved this book! The words, fresh, startling, concrete, kept me hungry to keep reading; lovely sentences, rhythms--I just want to hug the whole language of it really tight. I want to page through and read words and sentences and descriptions again and again--the language never stopped being luscious. The slow, quiet Southern mountain tone of the whole prose was in sharp contrast to the mean, horrid, scary, nasty plot, and this contrast worked beautifully. Never a gasp or a cheap thrill. The pa...more

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Jun 29, 2012 Carrie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Quotes:

…You try your best to love the world despite obvious flaws in design and execution. And you take care of whatever needy things present themselves to you during your passage through it. Otherwise, you’re worthless. (4)

All her life, the main lesson Luce had learned was that you couldn’t count on anybody. So she guessed you could work hard to make yourself who you wanted to be and yet find that the passing years had transformed you beyond your own recognition. End up disappointed in yourself...more

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Jun 18, 2012 Sally rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

This is the story of family beset by tragedy and violence. The main character is a young woman who retreats from the world after an assault, only to take on the responsibility of caring for her dead sister's two children who are traumatized by having witnessed their mother's murder. (Sounds cheerful, doesn't it?!) Add in the woman's messed-up father who is a local law officer and the crazy brother-in-law set on silencing the children, and you've got a great bedtime story. Just kidding! I love th...more

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Apr 25, 2012 K rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, suspense, romance

Nightwoods by Charles Frazier

From the author of Cold Mountain and Thirteen Moons comes another thought provoking, gritty, historical novel set in the Appalachians. The story’s setting is a small mountain town of North Carolina in the early 1960’s. The characters we meet have all been damaged in one way or another by life.

Luce is the caretaker of an old forgotten mountain lodge though the owner, old Mr. Stubblefield, has passed away and no one ever goes up to the lodge. Abandoned by her mother at...more Nightwoods by Charles Frazier

From the author of Cold Mountain and Thirteen Moons comes another thought provoking, gritty, historical novel set in the Appalachians. The story’s setting is a small mountain town of North Carolina in the early 1960’s. The characters we meet have all been damaged in one way or another by life.

Luce is the caretaker of an old forgotten mountain lodge though the owner, old Mr. Stubblefield, has passed away and no one ever goes up to the lodge. Abandoned by her mother at a young age and raped by a high school teacher Luce lives secluded at the lodge that watches over the town across the mile wide lake. Her only tenuous connection to that town is her cold father, Lit, who is the town’s ruthless officer and also a secret drug addict.

Luce becomes the reluctant guardian of her sister Lily’s young twin children after Lily was murdered by her abusive husband Bud in front of the children. Traumatized both by seeing their mother killed and also something darker and uglier that happened to them both Delores and Frank have become mute and disturbed. Luce quickly finds that left alone even for a minute the twins will torch and kill anything in front of them.

Luce is determined to stick it out with the twins with the hope that some day they will speak and become somewhat sociable. Maddie, an old mountain woman living nearby finds a slim connection to the twins mind through her pony Sally. Young Stubblefield shows up to claim his inheritance which includes a mountain home that the twins have already burned down and the mountain lodge. Stubblefield is surprised to find Luce as the caretaker. Quickly he becomes enamored with her and decides to work at winning over Luce and the twins.

Meanwhile Bud, through pure luck and good lawyer tactics, gets a hung jury and the state decides to not pursue the murder charge with another trial at this time. Before he killed Lily she had taken and hid a large amount of cash that Bud had stolen from a shady guy who would turn up dead floating in the water a few days later. Bud decides to track down the twins figuring that they either have the money or know where it is. Plus, his lawyer told him that the state could always bring back the murder charge if they find more evidence – evidence that the mute and destructive twins have in their memories. Bud decides to track down the twins and shows up in town. Since he isn’t known to anyone he is able to insinuate himself with other “good ol’ buddies” and ends up being the town’s bootlegger and supplier to Lit. But where Bud goes violence will follow.

Like his other novels Frazier knows how to convey the feel and actions of Appalachian people who come with baggage in their lives. Unlike Cold Mountain and Thirteen Moons, both stories telling of epic lives, this is a snapshot of people surrounded by bootlegging (both whiskey and drugs), violence, poverty and injured lives. But it is a story told in the same lyrical, reflective and stark writing of his other books and Nightwoods will be a winner for those who have loved Frazier’s writings. I also highly recommend listening to the book if you can – the book is read by Will Patton who hits the tones and nuances of Appalachia quite well.

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Mar 23, 2012 Marlene Brooks rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: drama, crime-law-suspense

A dark tale of murder set in rural NC in the early 1960's. The main character is a young woman, Luce, who was tramatized as a child by her negligent parents.
After high school she is working alone as a night shift switch board operator when she is raped by a one of her former teachers. She is not able to prove the rape which is very upsetting to her. She retreates to a huge abandoned lodge as its caretaker in the mountains of Appalachia for which she is given a small stipend. She lives off the la...more

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Feb 25, 2012 Richda Mcnutt rated it 3 of 5 stars

In "Nightwoods," Frazier takes his time in the development of characters, leaving much to your imagination as to their age, appearance, and motivation. He does not write for the impatient reader, but for the one who appreciates a sense of atmosphere, timelessness, and lyrical flow. I found the book to be fairly slow-moving at the beginning, and then was stunned by a revelation about mid-way through about the main character's family history. Set in the North Carolina mountains, there is a dark qu...more

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Feb 21, 2012 Marleen rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Luce is a young woman living alone away from the town, across the lake as caretaker in an old, empty Lodge. It is a lonely life, but it is safe and peaceful which is exactly what she needs after she fled town. Her peace is disrupted though when the two stranger children are brought to her house. Dolores and Frank are twins, the children of Luce’s sister Lily who was murdered by her husband, Bud. A murder Bud was not convicted for. The twins are troublesome; they don’t talk, don’t show emotions a...more Luce is a young woman living alone away from the town, across the lake as caretaker in an old, empty Lodge. It is a lonely life, but it is safe and peaceful which is exactly what she needs after she fled town. Her peace is disrupted though when the two stranger children are brought to her house. Dolores and Frank are twins, the children of Luce’s sister Lily who was murdered by her husband, Bud. A murder Bud was not convicted for. The twins are troublesome; they don’t talk, don’t show emotions and have a scary fondness for fire.
Bud follows the children to Luce’s Lodge, convinced that they have something that belongs to him, and determined to find it, no matter what he has to do to get it.
Stubblefield is the grandson of the man Luce has been caretaking for and has inherited his granddad’s properties as well as his debts. He has very fond memories of Luce from years ago and very carefully sets about getting closer to her. Determined not to scare her, Stubblefield turns out to be exactly what Luce and the children need in their lives.
When the children see Bud in the Lodge they panic and run of, with Bud hot on their heels, determined to silence the twins forever, because if they decide to start talking he could yet be convicted for murder.

I wasn’t crazy about this book. While the story is interesting, the way in which it was told didn’t quite work for me. The whole story read as description after description, and while that works wonderfully well when it comes to painting a picture of the area the story is set in, it doesn’t achieve a lot when it comes to getting emotions and feelings across.
I never got a real feel for any of the characters in this book. I got from the descriptions that the children were traumatised, Bud thoroughly bad, Luce a good person but a victim of circumstances and Stubblefield a generous and big-hearted man, but they never actually came off the page as such.
I can’t help feeling that a whole lot more could have been done with this story and these characters if only the story had been told in a different voice, and that made this a somewhat disappointing read which I ended up rating 3.5 stars.
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Feb 09, 2012 Sue rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction-general

The isbn for this book (hardcover) is the same isbn for the ebook I read on my Nook. Interesting!

Loved the story, but it was surrounded by too many words. I read probably 50 to 60% of the descriptive text, but I think I still got it.

The story itself is touching and suspenseful, and the environment in which the story takes place (even though I didn't read all the descriptive text) is those beautiful Applachian mountains that I call home (although different state). I could feel the damp chill in t...more

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Jan 15, 2012 Winnie rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This was just an okay book. I didn’t think it had much of a story. The characters were pretty much one dimensional and the story was simple and shallow. The characters seemed undefined and were not well developed; their motivations seemed limp or non-existent. None of the characters were people I cared about or would want to know.
This author simply failed to bring this story to its full potential. Thematically, Nightwoods has much to do with the damage that parents can do to their children. Lil...more

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About Charles Frazier

Frazier is the author of two novels: Thirteen Moons (2006), and Cold Mountain (1997), which received the American Academy of Arts and Letters Sue Kaufman Award for First Fiction and the National Book Award.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

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“Ask her what she craved, and she'd get a little frantic about things like books, the woods, music. Plants and the seasons. Also freedom. Not being bought and sold by some idiot employer, not having the moments of her days valued in fractions of a dollar by somebody other than herself.” — 8 people liked it

“She always carried a book, though, in case she needed to read a few pages to avoid unwanted conversation.” — 7 people liked it

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