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The Coldest Night
Henry Childs is just seventeen when he falls into a love affair so intense it nearly destroys him. To escape the wrath of the young girl's father, Henry joins the Marines, arriving in Korea on the eve of the brutal battle of the Chosin Reservoir-the defining moment of the Korean War. There he confronts an enemy force far beyond the scope of his imagining, but the challenges he meets upon his return home, scarred and haunted, are greater by far. From the steamy streets of New Orleans to the bone-chilling Korean landscape, award-winning author Robert Olmstead takes us into one of the most physically challenging battles in history and, with just as much intensity, into an electrifying, all-consuming love affair.
320 pages, Paperback
First published April 3, 2012
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1552 people want to read
About the author
Robert Olmstead
25 books150 followersRobert 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 Raymond Carver and Tobias Wolff and received both bachelor's and master's degrees, in 1977 and 1983, respectively.
He is currently the Director of Creative Writing at Ohio Wesleyan University. He has also served as the Senior Writer in Residence at Dickinson College and as the director of creative writing at Boise State University. Olmstead teaches in the Low-Residency MFA program in creative writing at Converse College .
Olmstead is the author of the novels America by Land, A Trail of Heart's Blood Wherever We Go and Soft Water. He is also the author of a memoir Stay Here With Me, as well as River Dogs, a collection of short stories, and the textbook Elements of the Writing Craft.[2] He was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1989 and an NEA Literature Fellowship in 1993.
His novel Coal Black Horse (2007) has received national acclaim, including the 2007 Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize for Fiction[7] and the 2008 Ohioana Book Award for Fiction; it was also selected for the "On the Same Page Cincinnati" reading program and the Choose to Read Ohio’s 2011 booklist.
Booklist has named his latest novel Far Bright Star (2009) (the second book in the Coal Black Horse trilogy) as one of the Top Ten Westerns of the Decade; the book also received the 2010 Western Writers of America Spur Award. One reviewer praised Olmstead's ability to "translate nature's revelatory beauty into words", commenting that Coal Black Horse evokes what Henry David Thoreau described in Walden as "the indescribable innocence and beneficence of Nature"; by contrast, the Mexican desert of Far Bright Star is "the place of the sun shriveled and the dried up". The Chicago Tribune review praised the authenticity of the imagery and experiences in Olmstead's writing, while also comparing his writing to that of Ernest Hemingway. It noted the influence of contemporary events, such as the guerrila warfare during the U.S. occupation of Fallujah during the Iraq War.
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 Raymond Carver and Tobias Wolff and received both bachelor's and master's degrees, in 1977 and 1983, respectively.
He is currently the Director of Creative Writing at Ohio Wesleyan University. He has also served as the Senior Writer in Residence at Dickinson College and as the director of creative writing at Boise State University. Olmstead teaches in the Low-Residency MFA program in creative writing at Converse College .
Olmstead is the author of the novels America by Land, A Trail of Heart's Blood Wherever We Go and Soft Water. He is also the author of a memoir Stay Here With Me, as well as River Dogs, a collection of short stories, and the textbook Elements of the Writing Craft.[2] He was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1989 and an NEA Literature Fellowship in 1993.
His novel Coal Black Horse (2007) has received national acclaim, including the 2007 Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize for Fiction[7] and the 2008 Ohioana Book Award for Fiction; it was also selected for the "On the Same Page Cincinnati" reading program and the Choose to Read Ohio’s 2011 booklist.
Booklist has named his latest novel Far Bright Star (2009) (the second book in the Coal Black Horse trilogy) as one of the Top Ten Westerns of the Decade; the book also received the 2010 Western Writers of America Spur Award. One reviewer praised Olmstead's ability to "translate nature's revelatory beauty into words", commenting that Coal Black Horse evokes what Henry David Thoreau described in Walden as "the indescribable innocence and beneficence of Nature"; by contrast, the Mexican desert of Far Bright Star is "the place of the sun shriveled and the dried up". The Chicago Tribune review praised the authenticity of the imagery and experiences in Olmstead's writing, while also comparing his writing to that of Ernest Hemingway. It noted the influence of contemporary events, such as the guerrila warfare during the U.S. occupation of Fallujah during the Iraq War.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 157 reviews
May 16, 2020
“They came three more times that night and each time it was the same. Bugles blared and whistles shrilled. The explosions that tore through them left them dead and wounded from lead, from steel, from stone, from each other’s skull and teeth and bone fragments from the air it pushed. Henry listened to the cries and groans and convulsions of the men by his side, their eyes dim, half closed, and sunk to the place inside them where a remnant of heat and life still flickered. At first he did not understand their murmurings and then he did. They were praying and they were begging. They believed in the only thing that was left to them, but there was no hymn, no anthem, no incantation, no talisman to save them, only death and its awful plenitude of horrors. Illumination fired throughout the night. A marine with a flamethrower walked the ridge methodically dispatching the enemy wounded…”
- Robert Olmstead, The Coldest Night
Robert Olmstead’s The Coldest Night is a uniquely interesting addition to the war-novel canon.
It is a sweeping epic told in less than three hundred pages. It is certified literary fiction, but is as subtle as an anvil falling on your head. It seems to be two very different books sharing the same cover. The first half is a lyrical, sappy love story. A love so impossible that it only happens in books or film or on Hallmark cards (or on the Hallmark Channel, for that matter). The second half is an ultraviolent war story. It is blood and guts and lasting trauma. It is the Frozen Chosin in 1950 and the Chinese have crossed the Yalu.
These two are halves are awkwardly joined, like a severed arm tied to a precious little pug. The macabre and the adorable forced into a disconcerting embrace.
For whatever reason, I thought worked. At least to a point.
The Coldest Night is about love and war, and it is literally divided equally between love and war. In a way, it feels pieced together from spare thematic elements left over from castoff sonnets and long war novels. Yet it takes these parts – these hoary clichés – and burnishes them to a high sheen. This is genre leavings reconstituted into something weirdly original. To indulge another simile: It’s like a famous chef came into my kitchen and turned all my frozen meals, leftover Dominos, and half-empty Yellow Tail bottles into a five-star feast.
This is a short book, readable in a single day. As mentioned above, there is something discordant in it. Nevertheless, it lingered in my mind after I finished it. It might very well be that the wildly divergent tones actually managed to achieve an equilibrium. The shockingly visceral violence helped leaven the unabashedly romantic opening; conversely, the memories of the gauzy love story helped pad the cold and blood and snow of the Chosin Reservoir.
The central character of The Coldest Night is seventeen-year-old Henry Childs. He is a poor country boy tending a stable when he falls in love with Mercy. Because – as I mentioned – this novel is derivative in just about every sense, Mercy is a rich girl, the daughter of a powerful judge. Star-crossed lovers are nothing new. In fact, in fiction, there are very few other kinds of love. But Olmstead makes it work with his writing. It sweeps and soars and doesn’t care if its florid emotion is making you uncomfortable.
There’s more than a touch of Hemingway in The Coldest Night. You see it in the contraction-free dialogue, and in Olmstead’s oft-blunt plot descriptions: “He did this. Then he did this. And then he did this.” At the same time, the opening act could’ve been written by any writer of teen romances. I hope I’m not spoiling things to say that the judge isn’t happy that Mercy and Henry are together; that Mercy and Henry take to the road (to New Orleans) to escape him; and that their star-crossed and class-dividing love is a fragile thing indeed.
On a note of heartbreak, The Coldest Night makes a sudden, jarring leap from the humid port of the Crescent City to the frigid wastes of North Korea. Henry has joined the Army and is on the road to disaster with MacArthur’s army.
If the cornpone sentiment has set your blood sugar spiking, well, Olmstead reverses course, and gives you a ruthless shot of insulin. The idyll of Henry’s affair with Mercy is forgotten, blown to hell by the sights and sounds he encounters.
Olmstead often writes with a poet’s sense of prose, with a certain rhythm and cadence. To be sure, the writing calls attention to itself, forcing you to answer the question: is this beautiful or purple? Certainly, there are moments when Olmstead’s style slips its bounds and becomes almost a parody of itself. Most of the time, though, its power gives the novel its reason for existence. There are images created within this story that just lasted. I can conjure them even now.
The Coldest Night is definitely not interested in storytelling. Henry is in love, then he’s in a war. That’s it. No twists or turns. The characterizations are also thin. Mercy is a symbol of youthful love. Henry’s pal in Korea, Lew Devine, is a crusty World War II veteran, the same older, martial father-figure we’ve seen a thousand times. Henry himself is a mystery, perhaps even to himself.
This is a book that’s hard to recommend because it is so atypical (and not just because it is the rare Korean War novel). The prose consists of the kind of painstakingly wrought, carefully constructed lines that would get you admittance to the Iowa Writer’s Workshop. Yet these purposefully placed words and sentences are in service to standard romance-and-war tropes, and also tend to ignore the plotting, character development, climatic peaks, and resolutions that typically support a dramatic structure. So, to the extent this can be recommended, it is as a skillful oddity, a book that delivers two vastly separated extremes, and does so with sneaky power.
- Robert Olmstead, The Coldest Night
Robert Olmstead’s The Coldest Night is a uniquely interesting addition to the war-novel canon.
It is a sweeping epic told in less than three hundred pages. It is certified literary fiction, but is as subtle as an anvil falling on your head. It seems to be two very different books sharing the same cover. The first half is a lyrical, sappy love story. A love so impossible that it only happens in books or film or on Hallmark cards (or on the Hallmark Channel, for that matter). The second half is an ultraviolent war story. It is blood and guts and lasting trauma. It is the Frozen Chosin in 1950 and the Chinese have crossed the Yalu.
These two are halves are awkwardly joined, like a severed arm tied to a precious little pug. The macabre and the adorable forced into a disconcerting embrace.
For whatever reason, I thought worked. At least to a point.
The Coldest Night is about love and war, and it is literally divided equally between love and war. In a way, it feels pieced together from spare thematic elements left over from castoff sonnets and long war novels. Yet it takes these parts – these hoary clichés – and burnishes them to a high sheen. This is genre leavings reconstituted into something weirdly original. To indulge another simile: It’s like a famous chef came into my kitchen and turned all my frozen meals, leftover Dominos, and half-empty Yellow Tail bottles into a five-star feast.
This is a short book, readable in a single day. As mentioned above, there is something discordant in it. Nevertheless, it lingered in my mind after I finished it. It might very well be that the wildly divergent tones actually managed to achieve an equilibrium. The shockingly visceral violence helped leaven the unabashedly romantic opening; conversely, the memories of the gauzy love story helped pad the cold and blood and snow of the Chosin Reservoir.
The central character of The Coldest Night is seventeen-year-old Henry Childs. He is a poor country boy tending a stable when he falls in love with Mercy. Because – as I mentioned – this novel is derivative in just about every sense, Mercy is a rich girl, the daughter of a powerful judge. Star-crossed lovers are nothing new. In fact, in fiction, there are very few other kinds of love. But Olmstead makes it work with his writing. It sweeps and soars and doesn’t care if its florid emotion is making you uncomfortable.
This moment was enough forever and he wanted time to stop. Overhead was the twining of the stars and stars caught in the tops of the pine trees. The smell of her hair. The air so thick and heavy. She was entirely herself, her hair around her face and at the back of her neck. He almost could not breathe. She stroked his hair and for some reason she began to cry and he kissed away her wet salty eyes. She took a deep breath as if preparing to go still deeper. She said, her voice barely audible, “All my life I have been strong, but now it is a hard thing to do.”
There’s more than a touch of Hemingway in The Coldest Night. You see it in the contraction-free dialogue, and in Olmstead’s oft-blunt plot descriptions: “He did this. Then he did this. And then he did this.” At the same time, the opening act could’ve been written by any writer of teen romances. I hope I’m not spoiling things to say that the judge isn’t happy that Mercy and Henry are together; that Mercy and Henry take to the road (to New Orleans) to escape him; and that their star-crossed and class-dividing love is a fragile thing indeed.
On a note of heartbreak, The Coldest Night makes a sudden, jarring leap from the humid port of the Crescent City to the frigid wastes of North Korea. Henry has joined the Army and is on the road to disaster with MacArthur’s army.
If the cornpone sentiment has set your blood sugar spiking, well, Olmstead reverses course, and gives you a ruthless shot of insulin. The idyll of Henry’s affair with Mercy is forgotten, blown to hell by the sights and sounds he encounters.
They held the perimeter, but they could not kill them fast enough. The machine guns hammered again and again and still could not kill them fast enough. Henry took up the BAR and moved down the line to cover the machine gunner as he changed out the barrel. He fired clip after clip when suddenly the machine gunner made a rattling sound and stood and another bullet speared his chest and he fell on his back, breathing heavily…And then they were everywhere and there were so many they were killing each other just to kill one of them. He drew his .45 and fired point-blank into the running bodies lancing across the slope when two grenades rolled into his position…
Olmstead often writes with a poet’s sense of prose, with a certain rhythm and cadence. To be sure, the writing calls attention to itself, forcing you to answer the question: is this beautiful or purple? Certainly, there are moments when Olmstead’s style slips its bounds and becomes almost a parody of itself. Most of the time, though, its power gives the novel its reason for existence. There are images created within this story that just lasted. I can conjure them even now.
The Coldest Night is definitely not interested in storytelling. Henry is in love, then he’s in a war. That’s it. No twists or turns. The characterizations are also thin. Mercy is a symbol of youthful love. Henry’s pal in Korea, Lew Devine, is a crusty World War II veteran, the same older, martial father-figure we’ve seen a thousand times. Henry himself is a mystery, perhaps even to himself.
This is a book that’s hard to recommend because it is so atypical (and not just because it is the rare Korean War novel). The prose consists of the kind of painstakingly wrought, carefully constructed lines that would get you admittance to the Iowa Writer’s Workshop. Yet these purposefully placed words and sentences are in service to standard romance-and-war tropes, and also tend to ignore the plotting, character development, climatic peaks, and resolutions that typically support a dramatic structure. So, to the extent this can be recommended, it is as a skillful oddity, a book that delivers two vastly separated extremes, and does so with sneaky power.
June 12, 2020
Henry grew up without a father. It was no immaculate conception. But Clemmie, Henry's Mother has never revealed the man's name. A secret which Henry has grown to accept. He grew up in the house of his grandfather who fought in the Civil War. The old man had an admiration for coal black horses. See Coal Black Horse His uncles road against Pancho Villa in 1916. See Far Bright StarThe
Olmstead's novel can easily be read as the ideal tale of American legend, folklore, mixed with a bit of the tall tale. Fatherless Henry is raised by Mother Clemmie who keeps hearth and home together as a nurse at the locale VA. Clemmons set up her own house, away from the men who experienced war. Why? she didn't say. Henry is a star baseball player. He's a good student. College is not in the cards. After school he works at Mr. Walburn' stable. Walburn's pride is "the Even" horse, whose progeny is never revealed to the reader. It's only important that Walburn won't sell for any price.
Henry and the horse bond. Henry works Walburn's stable for the time spent with.the Evan horse. School is out. Mercy, the daughter of a wealthy judge, is done with her pregraduate school. Summertime is faraway from college come August. More than enough time for Mercy to begin helping Henry around the stable. Time enough for Henry to fall in love. The kind that aches when you are not together
It is impossible to separate the love story from the remaining Two Parts. This is a novel of love and war. Perhaps more important, this is a NOVEL of memory. It is a blade with a cruel edge. Memory is capable of cutting two ways.
Some readers have mocked Olmstead's inclusion of Henry and Mercy's story, calling it a sappy distraction. At the age of 67, I sorrow for those who have not experienced the heart pounding, unrelenting power of first love. Olmsted understands.
The Coldest Night brings Henry and Mercy's story to an abrupt end.
"IT WAS OCTOBER 26, 1950, and harbored off the coast of North Korea were seventy-one transports packed with twenty-eight thousand marines waiting for the word to go. "
Henry abruptly has fallen from Paradise. He is in the deepest pit of Hell. Henry joined the Marines.
Douglas MacArthur landed his forces at Inchon in mid October. Their was little resistance. He immediately began to drive the North Koreans away in a stunning retreat. Henry knows little of tactics or strategy, but mentions being North of the 38th Parallel. Nor does MacArthur know that the Red Chinese are waiting to attack him with an army of 120,000 men.
Many men wondered what lay ahead.
"The line of march was already too long and too thin to be supplied and supported by reinforcements, and they all knew this, even the fools among them. Each man knew they were the lethal plaything of the old men who directed them, the old men who were always fighting the last war."
"They held the perimeter, but they could not kill them fast enough. The machine guns hammered again and again and still could not kill them fast enough. Henry took up the BAR and moved down the line to cover the machine gunner as he changed out the barrel. He fired clip after clip when suddenly the machine gunner made a rattling sound and stood and another bullet speared his chest and he fell on his back, breathing heavily…And then they were everywhere and there were so many they were killing each other just to kill one of them. He drew his .45 and fired point-blank into the running bodies lancing across the slope when two grenades rolled into his position…"
Part Two is Henry's education in War. Henry's mentor is Lew. Lew had fought in the Pacific in WWII. Five years older, Lee comes from Henry's home state, West Virginia. Now he will become his mentor. Henry learns how quickly the living are shredded to meat on the edges of Choison Reservoir. And Henry has learned to Hate. To Kill and survive.
As abruptly as Olmstead dropped Henry into War, he brings him home to peace. But Henry is not at peace. The memories of war are too strong. He wonders that most people knew nothing of the war he fought.
He made his way home with the skipper of a river boat on its last run. The Skipper had his share of memories. A veteran of World War One. On nights the two men, for Henry has been changed into a man older than his years. By what he has done, what he remembers, and what he cannot forget.
Questions:
Why did Clemmie leave her father's Home? I'll tell you it's a late reveal. It's a shocker.
What happened to Clemmie?
And, whatever happened to Henry and Mercy?
The answer to all questions is read the book. It's well worth the read.
May 2, 2022
Brutally Realistic
“The Coldest Night is an incredible book. It’s thoughtful and—in section set in Korea—brutal.
The writing is well crafted conveying the innocence and passion of first love along with the ferocity of battle.
“The Coldest Night is an incredible book. It’s thoughtful and—in section set in Korea—brutal.
The writing is well crafted conveying the innocence and passion of first love along with the ferocity of battle.
July 18, 2022
Bizarre combination of syrupy romance and brutal war story. The first half follows Henry Childs as he falls in “love” (lust) with Mercy, a wealthy girl whose father does not approve of their relationship. The second half finds Henry in Korea. He has enlisted in the Marines and his company fights at the battle of Chosin Reservoir. He returns home in despondency and attempts to rejoin society.
I could barely stand reading the romance part of this book. Mercy is not a believable character. The entire first half seems an excuse to write lots of sex scenes. They are cringeworthy, repetitive, and ultimately boring. The second half contains a decent storyline, with its emphasis on bringing to light a real historic battle in Korea.
I read this book after hearing of it in Hampton Sides’ excellent non-fiction, On Desperate Ground, that culminates in the battle at Chosin Reservoir. I thought I would follow it up by reading fiction about the same topic. Sometimes I get an idea that sounds good initially but goes awry in the execution.
I could barely stand reading the romance part of this book. Mercy is not a believable character. The entire first half seems an excuse to write lots of sex scenes. They are cringeworthy, repetitive, and ultimately boring. The second half contains a decent storyline, with its emphasis on bringing to light a real historic battle in Korea.
I read this book after hearing of it in Hampton Sides’ excellent non-fiction, On Desperate Ground, that culminates in the battle at Chosin Reservoir. I thought I would follow it up by reading fiction about the same topic. Sometimes I get an idea that sounds good initially but goes awry in the execution.
January 28, 2014
It's a little better than OK. What hampers the book is the love story of Henry and Mercy (seriously), which is icky sweet but elevated by Olmstead's terrific language. If you've read enough fiction or heard enough Springsteen songs, you could map this love story out on a bar napkin. The Korean War part it, now that's special. I'm talking Stephen Crane-in-a-modern-war type of writing. And I don't think it's an accident that Olmstead chose "Henry" as a name for his young solder. I actually wish Olmstead had decided to go ahead and do a Red Badge of Courage for Korea. We know it can be done, and done well. But this short book is more concerned with creating an American myth about Love & War (remember those dreamy home shots from the movie, Thin Red Line?). The American (flawed, heroic) part of it gets underscored (unbelievably, if you want to be picky), in the book's opening pages, which feature Henry's iron man grandfather, who can apparently walk forever in snowshoes at age 91. Olmstead is, I believe, recalling his earlier, excellent Civil War novel Coal Black Horse. If there is some kind of family linkage between the two books, I didn't feel compelled enough to go look it up. As I've said in other reviews on this author's work, Olmstead is from the Cormac McCarthy school of writing. He lacks the power and mystery and just plain cryptic weirdness (though he does have his moments) of that great writer, but he can still turn out a good, if uneven story.
April 16, 2012
Love it or Hate it
THE COLDEST NIGHT by Robert Olmstead is like no other book I've ever read. There is no other about which I can say, "This reminds me...."
I love the style of writing. I hate the subject matter yet I couldn't stop reading.
I did stop twice but just long enough to let the tears subside so I could get back to the matter at hand.
Most of the book is about the battle of the Chosin Reservoir, the decisive battle of the Korean War. Never have I read such a vivid battle scene; I don't know if I could survive another. It bolstered my hate of war and what it does to the young people who give their all for the good of the machine. It highlights the friendships bonded in war.
Before Henry went to Korea, he had a passionate love affair with a girl, Mercy, from the good side of the tracks. Her family disapproved and sent Henry running for his life. He left his mother, whom he loved dearly. He knew nothing of his father. He was seventeen years old. Way too young to face the horrors of war.
He came home a year later scarred in body and spirit and unable to settle down. I kept wanting him to see Mercy again.
I'll give nothing away.
This book will wring you dry.
THE COLDEST NIGHT by Robert Olmstead is like no other book I've ever read. There is no other about which I can say, "This reminds me...."
I love the style of writing. I hate the subject matter yet I couldn't stop reading.
I did stop twice but just long enough to let the tears subside so I could get back to the matter at hand.
Most of the book is about the battle of the Chosin Reservoir, the decisive battle of the Korean War. Never have I read such a vivid battle scene; I don't know if I could survive another. It bolstered my hate of war and what it does to the young people who give their all for the good of the machine. It highlights the friendships bonded in war.
Before Henry went to Korea, he had a passionate love affair with a girl, Mercy, from the good side of the tracks. Her family disapproved and sent Henry running for his life. He left his mother, whom he loved dearly. He knew nothing of his father. He was seventeen years old. Way too young to face the horrors of war.
He came home a year later scarred in body and spirit and unable to settle down. I kept wanting him to see Mercy again.
I'll give nothing away.
This book will wring you dry.
July 25, 2019
This is such a powerful story, and the writing is so good that I don’t know enough superlatives to express how good it really is.
Henry Childs is a teenager whose loves are baseball, horses, the outdoors, a good meal and a cigarette; until he meets Mercy. Mercy is a rider at the stables where Henry is working and they fall for each other head over heels. In fact, so much so, they elope. Mercy’s father catches up with them, and kidnaps her and sends Henry to the hospital.
Henry is devastated and joins the Marines to be shipped out to Korea. Here he endures fighting so intense at the Chosin Reservoir during the 1950 Korean War, that he barely makes it out alive.
Robert Olmstead is superb with his characters, descriptive settings and storyline that I found it hard to put down.
Highly recommended.
Henry Childs is a teenager whose loves are baseball, horses, the outdoors, a good meal and a cigarette; until he meets Mercy. Mercy is a rider at the stables where Henry is working and they fall for each other head over heels. In fact, so much so, they elope. Mercy’s father catches up with them, and kidnaps her and sends Henry to the hospital.
Henry is devastated and joins the Marines to be shipped out to Korea. Here he endures fighting so intense at the Chosin Reservoir during the 1950 Korean War, that he barely makes it out alive.
Robert Olmstead is superb with his characters, descriptive settings and storyline that I found it hard to put down.
Highly recommended.
March 8, 2016
I gave up well before it was over and didn't even make it to the Korean War; I've heard the latter part of the book is better. It is rare that I dislike the writing style and the story both, but there you have it. Olmstead uses a lot of words to describe not much at all, and too few words when something actually occurs. Pretentiously literary.
July 14, 2020
What an underrated little gem of a story! The Scenes are set in the US and North Korea in 1950. If you fancy a bit of historical tourism not too far from Mt Paeku, this is your place. I loved the part on the Gaylen horse coming to pick licorice and the search for the Pollaris star when it's time to go home. And how the story moved so abruptly each time. This all so very cinematic, with the right mix of love, trauma and life in that order. One has to wonder why this little book has never found a decent place on film.
To me, some of the most poignant moments comes near the end, when we are reminded of the indelible imprint of war.
"What do you remember most?"
"I guess I have a lot I remember but not much memory to hold it"
And the medics:
"He thought of Adelita, the losses she'd endured, her life as a nurse, her daily life of moderation and economy, haunting and tragic and sad and joyful. He then thought about the corpsmen carrying morphine syrettes in their cheeks so they would not freeze and plunging their hands into open wounds to find the bleeders, cutting into throats so someone could breathe. They answered the call whenever and they were stabbed and shot down and blown up just like everyone else."
To me, some of the most poignant moments comes near the end, when we are reminded of the indelible imprint of war.
"What do you remember most?"
"I guess I have a lot I remember but not much memory to hold it"
And the medics:
"He thought of Adelita, the losses she'd endured, her life as a nurse, her daily life of moderation and economy, haunting and tragic and sad and joyful. He then thought about the corpsmen carrying morphine syrettes in their cheeks so they would not freeze and plunging their hands into open wounds to find the bleeders, cutting into throats so someone could breathe. They answered the call whenever and they were stabbed and shot down and blown up just like everyone else."
March 25, 2012
Henry and his girlfriend Mercy ran away from home and had the time of their life until Mercy's father and brother find them, take Mercy home, and threaten Henry's life.
Henry, desperate and heartbroken, joins the Marines and is been sent straight away to the Korean War, just at the time when the tides of war are turning against the Americans. Lew, a grim WW II veteran, takes Henry under his wings. Together they suffer going through a living but freezing hell of atrocities and brutal never ending attacks.
Only Olmstead has the magic to describe what those veterans must have endured; you'll feel the impact of the guns while you're shivering in their foxholes.
Henry, desperate and heartbroken, joins the Marines and is been sent straight away to the Korean War, just at the time when the tides of war are turning against the Americans. Lew, a grim WW II veteran, takes Henry under his wings. Together they suffer going through a living but freezing hell of atrocities and brutal never ending attacks.
Only Olmstead has the magic to describe what those veterans must have endured; you'll feel the impact of the guns while you're shivering in their foxholes.
April 9, 2012
just OK--his experience in the Korean war and then back home fighting his demons from the war were interesting- but not compellling me to want to keep reading to learn what was next
May 14, 2012
Every review I read was spectacular, however I was extremely disappointed when I read this book. The subject matter was very interesting however I did not like the writing style at all. Someone described Olmstead's style as "sparse", however I just felt like the style was choppy ... almost empty?
March 27, 2012
I read his earlier book, "Stay With Me" and really enjoyed it. He has a unique, gritty way of taking mythology and putting a contemporary spin on it. Blunt and honest. Such a sad fable: a young boy and girl of such potential ruined by the forces of war.
September 4, 2020
The language in this book was beautiful - even the horrific descriptions of the Korean war, which I know very little about. Henry Childs is only 17 when he falls in love with Mercy, who is only 18. He is still at high school and has a promising baseball career ahead of him. However, first love is strong and Henry and Mercy run away to New Orleans to be together. Mercy comes from a prominent family and her brother and father come and drag her back home. Henry is devastated and so joins the Marines where he is soon sent to Korea. He makes a great friend and barely survives, with horrible napalm burns. His experiences in Korea are brutal and the war forces him to grew up way too quickly.
April 18, 2019
A terrific novel! This guy can write a novel that tears at your heart with every word. The description of the cold in the Korean winter, comrades-in-arms, and the love between a young man and woman are all handled with a skill that rivals that of some of the best modern American authors.
July 17, 2012
I almost give this novel the full five stars. Set in the 1950's, it deals with a young couple (17 and 18) deeply in love but from opposite social classes. They run away, they get found, they are separated by her father and brother. End of part one. He enters the Marines, still aged 17, and is sent to Korea during the war. The winters there are legendary for the coldness of them, hence the title. He sees and does horrible things,as soldiers do in war. He is injured many times, but gets back home. Back at home, (part three) he finds his aunt (his mother has died of cancer, he never had a father), and lives with her for a period of time, reliving the horrors of what happened to and around him. Not going to say if he meets up with the girl again.
Style wise, this is in step with Cormac McCarthy. Not the best example, but it's all I can find right now......
"It was an old city and worn out and as if built for some future that came but did not stop for long. The streets steamed ghostlike from the recent thrash of rain. They were dank streets into which the daylight could hardly penetrate.
He felt the eyes of the watchers as he passed by: waiting, isolated, suspicious."
Style wise, this is in step with Cormac McCarthy. Not the best example, but it's all I can find right now......
"It was an old city and worn out and as if built for some future that came but did not stop for long. The streets steamed ghostlike from the recent thrash of rain. They were dank streets into which the daylight could hardly penetrate.
He felt the eyes of the watchers as he passed by: waiting, isolated, suspicious."
July 20, 2012
I love Olmstead's ability to set the scene and mood. His descriptions of nature - whether it is the rural south or the battlefields of Korea are poetic. He reminds me of a sketch artist who in a few quick brush strokes brings a portrait to life. In this story, the grandfather, mother,the aunt the young man who is the central character and the men who are father figures to him are all intriguing characters described with minimal back story or details.
The book is divided into three sections. The first is the story of Henry's depature with his mother from his grandfather's rural home as the move to the "city" where he gets a job in stable and falls in love with a girl from a powerful and wealthy family. The second section takes a dramatic change of venue and tone as Henry joins the Marines and is sent to Korea. The third, and weakest section of the book, tells of his return to his hometown on leave.
The book disappointed in a few areas. The love interest and her family are cardboard cut outs intended only to provide a plot. They are forgettable and unbelievable. The entire "love story" portion of the plot felt contrived and took away from the beauty of the rest of the book resulting in 3 stars rather than 4.
The book is divided into three sections. The first is the story of Henry's depature with his mother from his grandfather's rural home as the move to the "city" where he gets a job in stable and falls in love with a girl from a powerful and wealthy family. The second section takes a dramatic change of venue and tone as Henry joins the Marines and is sent to Korea. The third, and weakest section of the book, tells of his return to his hometown on leave.
The book disappointed in a few areas. The love interest and her family are cardboard cut outs intended only to provide a plot. They are forgettable and unbelievable. The entire "love story" portion of the plot felt contrived and took away from the beauty of the rest of the book resulting in 3 stars rather than 4.
September 2, 2012
The Coldest Night comes with the quasi subheading "A Novel of Love & War." While Olmstead succeeds admirably in telling the War part of the story, he seems out of his comfort zone with the Love part. The romance between the main character and his soul mate germinates quickly and feels rushed - at times it teeters on the edge of contrived corniness (especially some of the dialogue). Ultimately, however, the strength and depth of the main character wins out and Olmstead's missteps in the Romance arena are hardly noticeable and by no means detrimental to the story as a whole.
Olsmtead's prose is crisp and exact, his imagery stark, and his depictions of war in Korea truly affecting. Once enamored by Olmstead's simplistic stylistics and hyper-efficient phrasing, one can not help but be reminded of Hemingway. This book is brutal and unflinching, tender and hopeful. While its themes concerned with war and violence will immediately feel familiar and somewhat typical, The Coldest Night is redeemed and made memorable by Olmstead's keen eye for detail and knack for finding meaning in the simplest of moments.
Not quite as good as his last book, Coal Black Horse.
Olsmtead's prose is crisp and exact, his imagery stark, and his depictions of war in Korea truly affecting. Once enamored by Olmstead's simplistic stylistics and hyper-efficient phrasing, one can not help but be reminded of Hemingway. This book is brutal and unflinching, tender and hopeful. While its themes concerned with war and violence will immediately feel familiar and somewhat typical, The Coldest Night is redeemed and made memorable by Olmstead's keen eye for detail and knack for finding meaning in the simplest of moments.
Not quite as good as his last book, Coal Black Horse.
February 23, 2015
I never managed to connect with this book. The author's style of writing was very distracting (disjointed, backwards sentencing, phrases for the sake of being obscure, certain words thrown in as descriptors when they're never used as such, etc.), and the few main characters that appear aren't brought to life enough to make you care about what happens to them. The author knows how to paint a pretty picture...but sometimes he doesn't know how to balance that out with plot or character development. And despite it all, it still ends predictably. It wasn't awful, but it wasn't memorable. I couldn't wait to finish this book.
July 1, 2012
Its flight scenes are reminiscent of "Lolita" and the battlefield descriptions are every bit as well-written and horrible as anything I've seen in war literature. The plot is brutally honest and the debilitating effects of what we now know as PTSD are starkly rendered as the reader follows a very likable character from innocence to seduction, carnage, and coming back to a home that doesn't feel like one. It's a uniquely American love story and an unembellished examination of violence and its effects even on the people who master it. Well done.
January 16, 2017
This book gets better as it goes along and I urge you to keep reading if Part One, which is mainly about a love affair (not Olmstead's strength) puts you off. Keep going, as Part Two, on the protagonist's time in the Korean War, is unforgettable. And Part Three, with his return to the States and the problems he faces readjusting, is perhaps even more unsettling and rich, though more subtle and restrained than the war scenes. Overall, a very fine novel by a very fine writer--and if you like this one, definitely check out COAL BLACK HORSE if you haven't read it..
July 21, 2013
I devoured this book. Maybe because it was the first fiction I've read in awhile, or maybe because I was so bewildered by the writing. The dialogue seemed stilted but still real, and the chronology of the story seemed to pass so quickly, although apparently not at all. It was haunting, and sexy, and beautiful, and sad. And something that I both couldn't believe, and could entirely believe, both at the same time. I loved it.
January 18, 2023
Page refs. are to the Kindle edition.
The story is OK, and the novel ends on a hopeful note (sort of), but Olmstead’s style is irritating. So many of his word choices stand out like the obstreperous know-it-all in Mrs. Pickering’s English class. “I know, Teacher! I know! Over here! Call on me!” Below are some of the most egregious examples.
61 “The air was heating and the day was like the two halves of what you are and they were split open like a chest with no attending surgeon to hover the interior.” Lovers undergoing heart surgery. Lovely simile. Sooo subtle. And why make “hover” a transitive verb?
92 “the beacon lights reflecting on the swimming motes that densed in the wet sky.” What does verbing the noun “dense” add?
92 “He carried the BAR and two harnesses of .30-caliber magazines.” “Magazines” should be “cartridges.”
92 “the heavy weight of their armamentary.” I know, “armamentary” is “an armory; a magazine or arsenal.” But what justifies its use here? When Wordsworth writes “Of something far more deeply interfused,” that is le mot juste. I cannot imagine any other word in place of “interfused.” But “armanentary”?
101 “He came to a place beneath hackled trees.” The trees looked like they had been combed out with a hackle? Or their hackles were up because of the killing beneath them? Would you like preciosity or anthropomorphism with your prose? How about both together? Win-win!
108 “Each man knew they were the lethal plaything of the old men who directed them, the old men who were always fighting the last war.” Here we go, that hoariest of war clichés. “Yeah, man, if we put the old politicians and generals on the front line we’d have no more wars, man. Hey, don’t bogart that joint, my friend!” Those who glibly repeat such commonplaces should study some history. Napoleon was 26 when he commanded the artillery in the streets of Paris on 13 Vendémiaire, cutting his fellow citizens apart with “a whiff of grapeshot.” Alexander was 21 when he had Thebes burnt to the ground, all the men killed, and the women and children sold into slavery. But the civilian dead must have gone “gentle into that good night” because the victors were not led by old men.
116 “An icy red glow flared in the southeast and the frozen and shuttered land became a profile of multiplicated spurs, razors, and spines many times folded.” Why “multiplicated”?
143 “Plane after plane flew in and scraped off its napalm.” How does a plane “scrape off” napalm? Napalm canisters were dropped like bombs.
205 “The past was coming and soon he would descend into its whelm.” Here we go, nouning a verb. To what end?
208 “If you ask me my opinion,” the captain, said, “love is the foremost disease of the chest.” On p. 61 the narrator compares love to open-heart surgery, here we are subjected to the same image in homelier guise, the “wisdom” of a tugboat captain.
209 “there was silent traffic stopped at the intersections.” Traffic at intersections was never silent in 1952, at least a half century before the advent of automatic stop/start systems.
212 “He liked the dentist. He was elderly with an enchanted disposition.” “Enchanted”? Why? If Olmstead is trying to paint with words, he’s lost me here.
240 The boys “began to pile the stones into cairns, as if possessed by the helpless need to build.” “Possessed” and “helpless”—how condescending. There are far less innocent activities for young boys. Let boys be boys, at least in this case.
279 “He crossed over the beclouded darkness of the river, where all night long were the murmurations of vapors, ghosts, and mists …” I suppose “murmurations” can be used that way, but it’s annoying and adds nothing.
282 “the sparrowlike smells that attend a baby in its nursery.” Why “sparrowlike”? As a boy I spent many hours shooting sparrows, as a man I spent much time around babies, but I never noticed “sparrowlike smells” from the latter.
284 “He felt her fingers on his back, his letheless skin.” What a procrustean injection of Greek mythology.
The story is OK, and the novel ends on a hopeful note (sort of), but Olmstead’s style is irritating. So many of his word choices stand out like the obstreperous know-it-all in Mrs. Pickering’s English class. “I know, Teacher! I know! Over here! Call on me!” Below are some of the most egregious examples.
61 “The air was heating and the day was like the two halves of what you are and they were split open like a chest with no attending surgeon to hover the interior.” Lovers undergoing heart surgery. Lovely simile. Sooo subtle. And why make “hover” a transitive verb?
92 “the beacon lights reflecting on the swimming motes that densed in the wet sky.” What does verbing the noun “dense” add?
92 “He carried the BAR and two harnesses of .30-caliber magazines.” “Magazines” should be “cartridges.”
92 “the heavy weight of their armamentary.” I know, “armamentary” is “an armory; a magazine or arsenal.” But what justifies its use here? When Wordsworth writes “Of something far more deeply interfused,” that is le mot juste. I cannot imagine any other word in place of “interfused.” But “armanentary”?
101 “He came to a place beneath hackled trees.” The trees looked like they had been combed out with a hackle? Or their hackles were up because of the killing beneath them? Would you like preciosity or anthropomorphism with your prose? How about both together? Win-win!
108 “Each man knew they were the lethal plaything of the old men who directed them, the old men who were always fighting the last war.” Here we go, that hoariest of war clichés. “Yeah, man, if we put the old politicians and generals on the front line we’d have no more wars, man. Hey, don’t bogart that joint, my friend!” Those who glibly repeat such commonplaces should study some history. Napoleon was 26 when he commanded the artillery in the streets of Paris on 13 Vendémiaire, cutting his fellow citizens apart with “a whiff of grapeshot.” Alexander was 21 when he had Thebes burnt to the ground, all the men killed, and the women and children sold into slavery. But the civilian dead must have gone “gentle into that good night” because the victors were not led by old men.
116 “An icy red glow flared in the southeast and the frozen and shuttered land became a profile of multiplicated spurs, razors, and spines many times folded.” Why “multiplicated”?
143 “Plane after plane flew in and scraped off its napalm.” How does a plane “scrape off” napalm? Napalm canisters were dropped like bombs.
205 “The past was coming and soon he would descend into its whelm.” Here we go, nouning a verb. To what end?
208 “If you ask me my opinion,” the captain, said, “love is the foremost disease of the chest.” On p. 61 the narrator compares love to open-heart surgery, here we are subjected to the same image in homelier guise, the “wisdom” of a tugboat captain.
209 “there was silent traffic stopped at the intersections.” Traffic at intersections was never silent in 1952, at least a half century before the advent of automatic stop/start systems.
212 “He liked the dentist. He was elderly with an enchanted disposition.” “Enchanted”? Why? If Olmstead is trying to paint with words, he’s lost me here.
240 The boys “began to pile the stones into cairns, as if possessed by the helpless need to build.” “Possessed” and “helpless”—how condescending. There are far less innocent activities for young boys. Let boys be boys, at least in this case.
279 “He crossed over the beclouded darkness of the river, where all night long were the murmurations of vapors, ghosts, and mists …” I suppose “murmurations” can be used that way, but it’s annoying and adds nothing.
282 “the sparrowlike smells that attend a baby in its nursery.” Why “sparrowlike”? As a boy I spent many hours shooting sparrows, as a man I spent much time around babies, but I never noticed “sparrowlike smells” from the latter.
284 “He felt her fingers on his back, his letheless skin.” What a procrustean injection of Greek mythology.
December 15, 2020
I've read two other Robert Olmstead novels, both during my Westerns project last year. The Savage Country was about a buffalo hunt, and Far Bright Star was about a small military outfit on the hunt for Pancho Villa. Both were good, but also desolate and violent. While Olmstead tends to write in the Western genre, this one is half love story and half Korean War story.
Henry Childs is just 17 when he falls in love with well-to-do Mercy. The intensity and emotion that Olmstead puts into that young relationship is very moving and remarkably believable. You feel for the characters and root for their story. But then Mercy's dad intervenes, and Henry ends up enlisting with the Marines and is shipped off to the Korean War on the cusp of its most intense battle — the Battle of Chosin Reservoir. (If that sounds familiar, it's because I read On Desperate Ground — the remarkable Korean War history — at the start of the year.)
The battle scenes are intense to say the least. Yes, there's the brutal violence, but also numbing cold, an unforgiving landscape, and relentless exhaustion. One of the most poignant parts of the book for me was actually at the end in an author's note. He related a story about being at an event and a woman asking why his battle scenes were so gruesome. It was a military vet who actually answered, saying something along the lines of "Mam, this was our experience. We need to be able to talk about the reality of what happened, otherwise you're just getting a glossed over version. This is what war is." A powerful point, to say the least.
Though at times hard to read, as books about war often are, The Coldest Night was really good. Olmstead's writing is sometimes poetic, but also Hemingway-esque in its sparseness and short, declarative sentence structure. It's a really interesting mix. His books are undeniably grim, but what I wrote about Far Bright Star remains true here too: There's an odd beauty to be found within the desolation of the story.
Henry Childs is just 17 when he falls in love with well-to-do Mercy. The intensity and emotion that Olmstead puts into that young relationship is very moving and remarkably believable. You feel for the characters and root for their story. But then Mercy's dad intervenes, and Henry ends up enlisting with the Marines and is shipped off to the Korean War on the cusp of its most intense battle — the Battle of Chosin Reservoir. (If that sounds familiar, it's because I read On Desperate Ground — the remarkable Korean War history — at the start of the year.)
The battle scenes are intense to say the least. Yes, there's the brutal violence, but also numbing cold, an unforgiving landscape, and relentless exhaustion. One of the most poignant parts of the book for me was actually at the end in an author's note. He related a story about being at an event and a woman asking why his battle scenes were so gruesome. It was a military vet who actually answered, saying something along the lines of "Mam, this was our experience. We need to be able to talk about the reality of what happened, otherwise you're just getting a glossed over version. This is what war is." A powerful point, to say the least.
Though at times hard to read, as books about war often are, The Coldest Night was really good. Olmstead's writing is sometimes poetic, but also Hemingway-esque in its sparseness and short, declarative sentence structure. It's a really interesting mix. His books are undeniably grim, but what I wrote about Far Bright Star remains true here too: There's an odd beauty to be found within the desolation of the story.
July 2, 2022
I think of this book as having 3 parts – addition, subtraction, remainder. This is not an easy read – the section of subtraction is difficult to absorb. I continue to read this author because of his excellence in writing the English language.
“… the edge of the forest, the swart green pines a wall into the night. Up here he felt by particle and thread the fluence that rode the cold air.”
“He was long boned and as if built of pipe.”
“… the kind of a man who when old and tired sat in the dim light of fire and let his mind … well up with the water of memory.”
About the PTSD …
“He could sleep or not. He could nightmare or not.”
“I have the darkest spells early in the morning and late at night. It’s where I understand how people can kill themselves.”
“He lay there with his eyes open, feeling the ragged thing inside him.”
“… he could feel its grip tighten inside his chest and across his belly. His eyes began to burn. He slid from the bed and went down on his knees and fought to breathe but he could not and could not speak and could not cry because he could not breathe.”
About the medics:
“… the corpsmen carrying morphine syrettes in their cheeks so they would not freeze and plunging their hands into open wounds to find the bleeders, cutting into throats so someone could breathe. They answered the call whenever and they were stabbed and shot down and blown up just like everyone else.”
“… the edge of the forest, the swart green pines a wall into the night. Up here he felt by particle and thread the fluence that rode the cold air.”
“He was long boned and as if built of pipe.”
“… the kind of a man who when old and tired sat in the dim light of fire and let his mind … well up with the water of memory.”
About the PTSD …
“He could sleep or not. He could nightmare or not.”
“I have the darkest spells early in the morning and late at night. It’s where I understand how people can kill themselves.”
“He lay there with his eyes open, feeling the ragged thing inside him.”
“… he could feel its grip tighten inside his chest and across his belly. His eyes began to burn. He slid from the bed and went down on his knees and fought to breathe but he could not and could not speak and could not cry because he could not breathe.”
About the medics:
“… the corpsmen carrying morphine syrettes in their cheeks so they would not freeze and plunging their hands into open wounds to find the bleeders, cutting into throats so someone could breathe. They answered the call whenever and they were stabbed and shot down and blown up just like everyone else.”
November 17, 2024
In 1950, a young man from the wrong side of the tracks starts a relationship with a wealthy girl. When her family strongly objects he ends up in Korea. The Korea section was truly horrific. I had to pretty much read it all in one sitting, just to get to the other side. Mercy, the young (and badly misnamed) woman did not sit well with me. She seemed a spoiled young woman who pursues Henry because he is good looking and her father will hate him. If she gets pregnant, she won't have to go to college. If the story were told at all from her point of view, my view might be more sympathetic. However, that is not Olmstead's style. It is always spare and elegiac, leaving a lot to be intuited.
September 7, 2022
Wow. While each book could be read as a stand alone, this book is the third of a trilogy. Each book speaks of a current war, of horses, and digs deep into the human heart. I’m not sure which book I liked best, either Coal Black Horse or this one. The Coldest Night is set during the Korean War and is more of a love story than the previous two books. I love how this author writes, his words are beautifully strung together.
July 1, 2025
I wanted to increase my knowledge of the Korean War through fiction. This book not only delivered but it was thoroughly enjoyable. Olmstead writes beautifully; the way he puts words together is pure magic. My only complaint about The Coldest Night is that it ended . (Key words - young man, early passionate love, bravery, endurance, Mother/Son, Aunt/nephew relationships, experience of war, impact on those who survive war.)
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December 6, 2019I don't rate books that I stop reading. I think this is the second time that I picked up (metaphorically on a Kindle) this novel. I am seldom interested in reading a story that tracks for a good bit on relationships that are not working out.
If you want a story about a middle class guy and a rich girl falling in love and the Father working to keep them apart dive right in.
If you want a story about a middle class guy and a rich girl falling in love and the Father working to keep them apart dive right in.
October 13, 2021
Part II, dealing with the Korean war, was really well done and an example of the most harrowing war lit, reminiscent of For Whom the Bell Tolls.
The other parts - the whole love affair with Mercy - I found myself racing through. Perhaps this is a failure of me as a reader, perhaps it's the book, but you'll have to make that call for yourself.
The other parts - the whole love affair with Mercy - I found myself racing through. Perhaps this is a failure of me as a reader, perhaps it's the book, but you'll have to make that call for yourself.
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