Charles Frazier · 1997 · overland

Charles Frazier's 1997 novel, a Civil War Odyssey in which a wounded Confederate deserter named Inman makes the long, dangerous walk home across North Carolina to the mountain and the woman he loves. Alternating with Ada's struggle to survive on the farm, it is a luminous, sorrowful book about war, land and the cost of getting home. The route traces Inman's journey from the Piedmont to the Blue Ridge.

1. 1
   Raleigh

   Wounded and sick of the war, the Confederate soldier Inman walks out of a military hospital near Raleigh and turns for home, hundreds of miles to the west.

2. 2
   Cape Fear River

   At a river crossing he meets a hard-pressed ferrywoman and the violence that shadows the whole road home.

3. 3
   The Foothills

   Westward through the foothills, half-starved and hunted by the Home Guard, as his beloved Ada struggles to keep her farm alive in the mountains ahead.

4. 4
   Cold Mountain

   To Cold Mountain at last and a reunion in the high Blue Ridge, a homecoming that the war will not let stand.