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81st out of 358 books
—
291 voters
Coal Black Horse
When Robey Childs's mother has a premonition about her husband, a soldier fighting in the Civil War, she does the unthinkable. She instructs her only child to retrieve his father from the battlefield and bring him home. Just fourteen and ill-prepared for the journey, Robey sets off wearing the coat his mother sewed to ensure his safety: blue on one side, gray on the other....more
Hardcover, 218 pages
Published
April 10th 2007
by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
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Great.
At one level, a stock transformation through a journey story.
At another level, an American Divine Comedy.
A boy travels from the purity of his home and childhood into the depths of hell and returns a man. Hell in this case takes form as the Civil War and specifically, the aftermath of the Battle of Gettysburg; where the death, blood and horror signal the start of a national return to self-evident truths.
The magic of this story is made by the boy's guide; a shaman who casts a mystical spell...more
At one level, a stock transformation through a journey story.
At another level, an American Divine Comedy.
A boy travels from the purity of his home and childhood into the depths of hell and returns a man. Hell in this case takes form as the Civil War and specifically, the aftermath of the Battle of Gettysburg; where the death, blood and horror signal the start of a national return to self-evident truths.
The magic of this story is made by the boy's guide; a shaman who casts a mystical spell...more
Robey Child's mother instructs him to find his father on the Civil War battlefield and bring him home. What follows is an extremely well-written historical novel and coming of age tale. During his journey, Robey is exposed to the best and worst of human nature, from the murderous deceptions of a wartime scavenger to the fatherly kindnesses of a Union officer, and he is forced to examine his own capacity for cruelty, cowardice, bravery, and tenacity in the wake of war's horror.
This book was a win...more
This book was a win...more
Jul 14, 2007
Wendy
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
anyone who liked "Cold Mountain" or likes fiction about the Civil War
A young boy goes in search of his father in the Civil War and finds him on the battlefield in Gettysburg. Very, very dark, almost mythological in scope, and beautifully written, but I had a few problems: 1) It was a bit too graphically violent for my taste. 2) The main character was way too philisophical for his age. I mean, he's 14 years old, and he reflects on things like he's 45. I found this annoying. And 3) Too many coincidences. The main character keeps running into the same people, no mat...more
I bought this book after listening to a positive review from some guy on NPR. He was so emphatic that everyone listening to the radio program should run right out and buy it that I did just that. I'm about half way through it- I put it down for a few days after realizing that it wasn't the right kind of book to be reading on vacation. I'll go back to it and finish it eventually but I'm not running back. Maybe it's just not my kind of book? I'm having a hard time connecting to the book. Having sa...more
I'm disappointed with this book as in many places it felt choppy and underdeveloped. The main character (Robey-a 14 yr. old boy)was absolutely boring with no personality. Dialogue between the characters did nothing to enhance the story. The Coal Black Horse, who should have been a more important character in the book.....thus the title, was only mentioned occassionally and did nothing to show his importance in the story. The author did do a good job describing the graphic carnage of post-battle...more
A classic coming-of-age tale set in the horror of the American Civil War.[return][return]After hearing of the death of Stonewall Jackson, Hettie Childs sends her 14 year old son Robey off to find his father, who is fighting with Lee� s army. A neighbor gives him a magnificent coal black horse and a pistol, warning Robey that he will have to learn much� and by implication mature into adulthood� quickly if he is to survive his quest.[return][return]So equipped, Robey sets off from what is probably...more
"It is a tale ... full of sound and fury; signifying nothing." -Shakespeare
The above quote tells quite a bit about Olmstead's Coal Black Horse . It is garnish and flair, it is pretty words and gruesome descriptions of the horrors of war, but it is a story without a point, except to say that life is without value and, eventually, someone will end yours and it will all be over.
Olmstead borrows heavily from the styles of Howard Bahr and Stephen Crane to create this book. From The Red Badge of Cour...more
The above quote tells quite a bit about Olmstead's Coal Black Horse . It is garnish and flair, it is pretty words and gruesome descriptions of the horrors of war, but it is a story without a point, except to say that life is without value and, eventually, someone will end yours and it will all be over.
Olmstead borrows heavily from the styles of Howard Bahr and Stephen Crane to create this book. From The Red Badge of Cour...more
This is the second novel by this author that I've read, and like the first one, I'm tempted to give this one five stars. It's the story of a boy, fourteen years old, sent by his mother to bring his father home from the Civil War. The father seems to have joined up with the Army of Northern Virginia, and the boy,Robey, takes off on a journey east to find him. He encounters several characters, some dangerous, before he finds his father badly wounded, on the evening after Pickett's Charge. He, and...more
Robert Olmstead has weaved a powerful narrative about the death of innocence and the cost of violence, showing all this through the eyes of a fourteen year old boy during the Civil War. More than a coming of age story, the struggles and horrors that Robey faces mark him forever as a member of violence, first as a spectator and ultimately as a participant.
Olmstead's prose is lively and full of detail as he spends every last syllable as carefully as possible, not wasting a single word. He does no...more
Olmstead's prose is lively and full of detail as he spends every last syllable as carefully as possible, not wasting a single word. He does no...more
Another book and author I would not have read but for the book group. Reviewers liken it to Red Badge of courage and Cold Mountain. It has been way too long since I read Red Badge, but my memory of Cold Mountain is that it was more gripping and real with less gore. Coal Black Horse is a vivid Civil War novel of a mother who sends her 14 year old son to find his Dad. She makes for him a coat, blue on one side and grey on the other. The journey from his mountain to Gettysburg and home again is fra...more
Apr 24, 2009
Evanston Public Library
added it
On the eve of the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863, Hettie Childs has a premonition and sends her only child Robey, age fourteen, on a mission to bring his father back to the safety of their remote farm in the Virginia hills. Robey's journey is arduous, perilous, and brings this boy's childhood to a sudden and lasting end. Accompanied by a beautiful and mystical coal black horse, Robey is shot, robbed, nearly starved, and hunted by the terrible, desperate characters created by war. He witnesses horr...more
I can see how some people would think that this is a magnificent novel, but for my tastes it was overwritten (at least 4 times I paused to look up a word in the dictionary beside my favorite reading chair, only to find the word not listed in that dictionary!) and too grisly, making it overall an unpleasant reading experience. A 14-year-old boy's mother has a premonition of his father's death fighting in the Civil War and sends him off to bring his father home. Nothing much happens for the first...more
Stonewall Jackson is dead.
It's 1863 Civil War America and a mother with a premonition pulls her son, Robey, from bed in the pre-dawn hours and gives him one command, go to the battlefields and bring your father home. Without Jackson, the Confederacy is lost, and the war is just as good as over.
Jarring immediacy, and sleepy eyed confusion are perfectly handled in the prose that opens the novel, and it pulls one into the worry and wonder at having a great and terrible task suddenly thrust upon the...more
It's 1863 Civil War America and a mother with a premonition pulls her son, Robey, from bed in the pre-dawn hours and gives him one command, go to the battlefields and bring your father home. Without Jackson, the Confederacy is lost, and the war is just as good as over.
Jarring immediacy, and sleepy eyed confusion are perfectly handled in the prose that opens the novel, and it pulls one into the worry and wonder at having a great and terrible task suddenly thrust upon the...more
Oct 01, 2012
Echo's Onomatopoeia
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Anyone
Recommended to Echo's by:
Susan Tekulve
Shelves:
loved-more-than-average
I read this book as an assignment for my Novel Writing class, it was chosen as an example of the "Adventure Novel." And it is certainly that. Robert Olmstead is an absolutely amazing writer and reader of his work. He came to my school, Converse College in Spartanburg, SC shortly after we had read this book for class. We were able to hear him read from his newest book 'The Coldest Night." A book I have not read yet, but bought and intend to read soon.
Olmstead has a gift for detailing his imagery...more
Olmstead has a gift for detailing his imagery...more
Feb 05, 2009
Bookmarks Magazine
added it
Robert Olmstead has previously published three novels, a short story collection (River Dogs), and a memoir. Brief and intense, Coal Black Horse has generated high praise and seems destined to become the author's breakout book. Critics inevitably compare the novel to Charles Frazier's masterpiece, Cold Mountain, and other classics of Civil War and postapocalyptic fiction: Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage, E. L. Doctorow's The March, Cormac McCarthy's The Road, and Michael Shaara's Killer
...more
Much the same as Far Bright Star, I'm not a huge fan of the writing style. At times, it becomes awkward...again, though, that could be Olmstead's particular style. Regardless, it takes away from the pleasure of reading. As for the story, it was okay. For a relatively short novel, I thought it could have been shorter. It drones on in places and had me longing for something different to happen; then, the next event would begin and end before I had a chance to enjoy it. Like Far Bright Star, the bo...more
The way this book is written instantly reminded me of The Road by Cormac McCarthy. As Robey wonders around the countryside looking for his father he sees some things he had never seen before. Some things he wished he had never seen. He also comes across a girl, Rachel, who is traveling with a preacher and his wife. Robey witnesses the preacher raping this young girl. Over time Robey and Rachel keep crossing each others paths. As he gets to the killing fields where his father is he sees even wors...more
This is one of the darkest books I have ever read. Olmstead, utilizing the deceptively simple storyline of a boy sent by his mother to find his father and bring him home during the Civil War, has created a tale of nearly mythological proportions that explores every possible atrocity known to humankind. Along his journey, our fourteen year-old protagonist witnesses life-altering violations of human virtue, a barrage of repulsive acts and abhorrent characters that make him question everything he h...more
I have a thing for Civil War books, and quite possibly a thing for Cormac McCarthy too. This book satisfied both of my desires in that sense. Told in a somewhat sparse manner similar to McCarthy, it still had Olmstead's own style of writing that is at the same time poetic (but very descriptive) and haunting. The tragedies of the Civil War stay with you, especially when told in such a raw way in this book. A beautiful read just because of the way he puts words together to form images of a horribl...more
OK, many people rave about this novel. The style and use of language is masterful. The picture of what the American Civil War was really like is gripping, though horrific. BUT the novel itself is BLEAK. The novel tells the “mesmerizing descent into the hypnotic and violent hell of war” of a fourteen year old who must journey (much of the time on the titled horse, which is much wiser and more experienced than he) through the worst of the Civil War, including a graphic rape, brutal scavengers’ dep...more
This Civil War detached-child-narrator story took a while to grab me but the further I get from it the better a book I find it (minus the ending which was masculine fiction overkill for me.) A boy's mother sends him out to find his father who has gone off to war. She gives him a reversible union/confederacy jacket and a horse, but the horse goes lame on the way down from their mountain home and through the kindness of a general store owner he ends up with the coal black war horse of the title. H...more
While I was reading this, I kept thinking about communication, and history, and the way we approach historical events, removed by a hundred years.
It's easy to look back on a battle and say, That was the Battle of Gettysburg. It was fought in early July 1863 with 50,000 casualties. You had Meade on one side and Lee on the other. You can go back and draw up the battle plans in your head and watch how it was supposed to go and how it really went.
It's another thing to be there. Particularly from the...more
It's easy to look back on a battle and say, That was the Battle of Gettysburg. It was fought in early July 1863 with 50,000 casualties. You had Meade on one side and Lee on the other. You can go back and draw up the battle plans in your head and watch how it was supposed to go and how it really went.
It's another thing to be there. Particularly from the...more
I heard so many good things about this book, but I must say that I was disappointed. I am not a fan of animal stories, but since this was one of the Cincinnati Public Library's "On the Same Page" selections, I expected more. I felt that there was very little development of the main character, a 14 year old boy who sets out to find his soldier father amid the horrors of the American Civil War. And the horse .....I thought this animal would be significant throughout the story, but no, he seemed to...more
Coal Black Horse featured some of the best examples of descriptive writing relating to war, that I have read. While I was reading my Kindle edition I highlighted numerous passages, either beautiful or simply graphic in their use of either sensory language, figurative language and plain old word choice. But, I found the characterisation flat, the plot somewhat plodding, and the tone really, really gloomy and sad. I know the subject matter (the American Civil War) is hardly going to be cheerful, b...more
"Coal Black Horse" by Robert Olmstead is quite an interesting and fascinating novel. "Coal Black Horse" is a novel about a boy named Robey and his heroic quest to find his lost father who was part of the civil war. The novel starts off with Robey's anxious mother sending Robey off to find his father, where he embarks on a quest that will forever change his life. Many things happen along the way to affect Robey, and Olmstead tells the tale of this journey.
Throughout reading it, I found myself st...more
Throughout reading it, I found myself st...more
I am not easily impressed with words, this is different though. These already expression laden, beautiful constructed sentences and passages only get topped off by the emotions behind them. Not necessary emotions of the protagonist, but you the reader. Considering the settings of this book, during the Civil War, be aware of the sort of emotions you'll be experiencing though...
- "50,000 men who were killed, and wounded and missing from the rolls. They were in parts and pieces. They were whole an...more
- "50,000 men who were killed, and wounded and missing from the rolls. They were in parts and pieces. They were whole an...more
This is an amazing book. The story of a 14 year old boy sent to find and bring home his father in the miidle of the Civil War is breathtaking in it's writing, and in it's descriptions of the horror of battle. In fact, I found some scenes almost impossible to read, the violence and obscenity of war being so viscerally depicted. And yet, ther was nothing gratuitous about these scenes, just a chilling description of what was. I think that the boy being as young as he was, and being given a task a g...more
In this Book I felt sorrow joy anger and sometimes I felt tears start in my eyes. This book gave me a diferent perspective about war and how much of a bad thing it is and how much this country doesnt need it. I would recommend this book to someone that likes a novel that brings sadness because this book is filled with it. But I wouldnt catogorize this book as happy or joyful, it may have some part but other then that it doesnt have any other parts of happiness or joy. So I give it a three star r...more
Coal Black Horse is about the journey of a boy across the war-torn South to Gettysburg to find his father. The hero is tested by various trials; each test changes him from a boy into a man. The description of America in the early 1860's (especially the roads and the battlefields) is raw and grotesque; it depicts a dying world slowly transitioning into a new one. Olmstead contrasts his ugly depiction of civilization with the romantic and mystic qualities of nature. It's refreshing to have a hero...more
I had to sit on this read for a day to figure out how I wanted to review it. Olmstead crafts prose wonderfully and it's easy to get caught up in his stories and his language. Still, this one didn't ring for me like Far Bright Star did.
I won't belittle the work and call it merely a coming-of-age tale, but I will use the "picaresque" label. Things got a bit off for me about half-way through. While I think parts of the story were profound, I think he clutters it with extra stuff: needless characte...more
I won't belittle the work and call it merely a coming-of-age tale, but I will use the "picaresque" label. Things got a bit off for me about half-way through. While I think parts of the story were profound, I think he clutters it with extra stuff: needless characte...more
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| Coal Black Horse | 1 | 24 | Jul 10, 2009 11:25am |
Robert Olmstead (born January 3, 1954) is an award-winning American novelist and educator.
Olmstead was born in 1954 in Westmoreland, New Hampshire. He grew up on a farm. After high school, he enrolled at Davidson College with a football scholarship, but left school after three semesters in which he compiled a poor academic record. He later attended Syracuse University, where he studied with Raymon...more
More about Robert Olmstead...
Olmstead was born in 1954 in Westmoreland, New Hampshire. He grew up on a farm. After high school, he enrolled at Davidson College with a football scholarship, but left school after three semesters in which he compiled a poor academic record. He later attended Syracuse University, where he studied with Raymon...more
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“All that night he followed bends of the black road jeweled by starlight until the wan light of the dawn touched the east with red and the pastures turned green." (pg. 76)”
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