Charles Frazier was a complete unknown as an author when he published his debut novel, Cold Mountain, in the mid-1990s. His own hopes for its success weren’t high: “I hoped there’d be 8- or 10,000 people in the South that would enjoy it and that the reviews would be good enough to get me a better teaching job.” Four million copies, a National Book Award, and an Oscar-winning film version later, Frazier just scored a whopping $8m advance for his next novel.