Summary
Summary
When Robey Childs's mother has a premonition about her husband, a soldier fighting in the Civil War, she does the unthinkable: she sends her only child to find his father on the battlefield and bring him home.
At fourteen, wearing the coat his mother sewed to ensure his safety--blue on one side, gray on the other-- Robey thinks he's off on a great adventure. But not far from home, his horse falters and he realizes the enormity of his task. It takes the gift of a powerful and noble coal black horse to show him how to undertake the most important journey of his life: with boldness, bravery, and self-posession.
Coal Black Horse joins the pantheon of great war novels-- All Quiet on the Western Front, The Red Badge of Courage, The Naked and the Dead .
Author Notes
Robert Olmstead is the author of eight previous books. Coal Black Horse was the winner of the Heartland Prize for Fiction. The Coldest Night was a finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. Far Bright Star was the winner of the Western Writers of America Spur Award. Olmstead is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and an NEA grant and is a professor at Ohio Wesleyan University.
Reviews (4)
School Library Journal Review
Adult/High School-Although the basic plot is simple, the emotional impact of this book is complex. Robey, 14, is sent to find his father, a Civil War soldier, after his mother has a premonition. At the beginning of the journey, he is given a coal black horse that takes on almost mythic connotations. The early part of the quest is like any other, and the portrayal of the countryside is beguiling and effective. Those whom Robey meets along the way become increasingly threatening. At one point, he is the trapped observer of a brutal rape. He later meets its victim and must confront his sense of guilt. Robey finds his dying father on the battlefield and, in order to survive, he must learn to kill. Certainly this novel invites comparison with Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage, but there are more layers of guilt and redemption here. The story can be read on several levels: some teens will enjoy Robey's adventure and close association with the coal black horse, while other readers will be rewarded by a book that raises troubling issues about the nature of war and carnage. The writing is lyrical and descriptive throughout.-Teri Titus, San Mateo County Library, CA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Olmstead's new work (after Stay Here with Me) is a convulsive, bloody Civil War tale that tracks a boy's search for his father on the battlefield at Gettysburg. At 14, Robey Childs is on the cusp of manhood when he sets off from the family farm at his mother's behest to find his soldier father and bring him home. A sympathetic farmer loans Robey an uncommonly beautiful and sturdy black horse. On the road, Robey passes carts carrying the maimed and dead, and bands of Native Americans and runaway slaves. A chain of horrific trials begins for Robey when a man dressed as a woman shoots him and steals the horse. He's taken prisoner as a suspected spy, witnesses a girl's rape and is caught up in a carnage-drenched raid. However, he survives the attack, is reunited with the stolen horse and sets out again, days later finding his father on the battlefield, mortally wounded. Robey can't save his father, but he can try to save the raped girl, Rachel, from further violence. His return home and his testimony to what he saw forms a powerful, redemptive narrative. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
Olmstead has fashioned an absorbing tale that is a cross between two of the most respected and widely read Civil War novels. Combining elements of the rite-of-passage motif employed by Stephen Crane in The Red Badge of Courage with the classic odyssey plot device recycled so effectively by Charles Frazier in Cold Mountain (1997), he has provided a fresh perspective on an old--but never timeworn--subject. When 14-year-old Robey Child is sent by his mother to search for his father, a doomed soldier, he witnesses the horrors of war both on and off the battlefield. Arrayed in a jacket (gray on one side, blue on the other) custom made by his mother and riding a talismanic coal black horse, he embarks upon a life-altering journey that will challenge him physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Olmstead does not shy away from the brutal reality of warfare, and his starkly powerful descriptions of violence and carnage are harrowing. Civil War buffs will appreciate the attention to detail; general readers will be mesmerized by the powerfully evocative journey. --Margaret Flanagan Copyright 2007 Booklist
Library Journal Review
A coming-of-age story whose grim background is the Civil War, this work by Olmstead (River Dog: Stories) follows 14-year-old Robey Childs on his quest to locate his father, a soldier in that war. His mother's premonition sets him on the journey, with no money, no clear direction, and just a worn-out horse to ride. Robey's fortune in coming across an extraordinary horse to accompany him is soon cancelled when the horse is violently taken from him, and he experiences privation and sorrow as he tries to reconnect with the horse and locate his dying father on the battlefield. Sparsely told and graphically depicted, Robey's journey is a small-scale epic that will find a broad audience in public library fans of Civil War historical fiction.-Ann H. Fisher, Radford P.L., VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.