From the New York Times bestselling author of Cold Mountain and Varina, a stunning new novel that paints a vivid portrait of life in the Great Depression
Hurtling past the downtrodden communities of Depression-era America, painter Val Welch travels westward to the rural town of Dawes, Wyoming. Through a stroke of luck, he’s landed a New Deal assignment to create a mural representing the region for their new Post Office.
A wealthy art lover named John Long and his wife Eve have agreed to host Val at their sprawling ranch. Rumors and intrigue surround the couple: Eve left behind an itinerant life riding the rails and singing in a western swing band. Long holds shady political aspirations, but was once a WWI sniper—and his right hand is a mysterious elder cowboy, a vestige of the violent old west. Val quickly finds himself entranced by their lives.
One day, Eve flees home with a valuable painting in tow, and Long recruits Val to hit the road with a mission of tracking her down. Journeying from ramshackle Hoovervilles to San Francisco nightclubs to the swamps of Florida, Val's search for Eve narrows, and he soon turns up secrets that could spark formidable changes for all of them.
In The Trackers, singular American writer Charles Frazier conjures up the lives of everyday people during an extraordinary period of history that bears uncanny resemblance to our own. With the keen perceptions of humanity and transcendent storytelling that have made him beloved for decades, Frazier has created a powerful and timeless new classic.
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“Will Patton uses a gentle Southern accent to embody Val Welch, and he maintains that soft approach even through some fairly graphic violence…[and] clearly evokes the characters behind the words.”
— AudioFile
“A novel of suspense with an all-American sting."
— Washington Post“Frazier is in top form…Period-authentic, and the writing hums with spectacular word-images.”
— Booklist (starred review)Charles Frazier is the author of several books, including Cold Mountain, which won the National Book Award in 1997 and was made into an Academy-Award winning film. His second novel, Thirteen Moons, was a New York Times bestseller and named a best book of the year by the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He has taught at the University of Colorado at Boulder and at North Carolina State University.
Will Patton is an award-winning actor and narrator. HIs narrations have earned the prestigious Audie Award for Best Fiction Narration and also won dozens of AudioFile Earphones Awards. His numerous film credits include Remember the Titans, The Punisher, The Mothman Prophesies, Armageddon, and The Spitfire Grill. He starred in the TNT miniseries Into the West and on the CBS series The Agency and won Obie Awards in the theater for his performances in Fool for Love and What Did He See.