Frazier published "Cold Mountain," his debut novel, in 1997. He was 46. He had quit teaching at a local university to write it, after his wife, Katherine, told him, "You don't want to wake up at 65 and wonder what kind of book you would have written."

*****

While researching "Cold Mountain," Frazier came across a reference to a 90-year-old man in an asylum in Raleigh, N.C., in the late 1800s—a white man named William Holland Thomas, who, for days, spoke nothing but Cherokee. The story became "Thirteen Moons." By April 2002, Frazier had already done some legwork on the book, but knew what he'd written was too woolly to show prospective publishers: "It'd go from a pretty finished scene that was five or 10 pages long, to 10 pages of plant names, to the recipe for yellow-jacket soup." Instead, he wrote a one-page proposal for "Thirteen Moons" before coffee one morning. Random House paid $8.25 million for it, and producer Scott Rudin ponied up $3 million for the movie rights.

Frazier was admonished in some newspapers for leaving the small publisher, Grove Atlantic, that had discovered him, though he's still friends with his former editor. (Grove had bid $6 million in partnership with Vintage paperbacks.) It was not an entirely pleasant time for such a private person, although, sure, there are worse problems a guy could have. "I called my mother after the deal was done and I said, 'There may be some stuff in the papers about this'," says Frazier. "She said, 'Oh, I already know. I saw it on the crawl on CNN'."