Teaser Tuesdays

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly meme hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. To participate, grab your current read, open to a random page and share a few sentences. Don't include spoilers but do include the title and author.

Alone with her visitor, a subtle change came over Nadina's smile.
"Compatriots though we are, we will not speak Russian, I think," she observed.
"Since we neither of us know a word of the language, it might be as well," agreed her guest.
By common consent, they dropped into English, and nobody, now that the Count's mannerisms had dropped from him, could doubt that it was his native language.  

p. 2 of The Man in the Brown Suit by Agatha Christie

Book Beginnings - Coal Black Horse

Book Beginnings is a meme hosted by Rose City Reader. Share the first sentence (or so) of a book you are currently reading, along with your initial thoughts and impressions about the sentence or book. Remember to include the title of the book and the author AND link up at the Rose City Reader

The evening of Sunday May 10 in the year 1863, Hettie Childs called her son, Robey, to the house from the old fields where he walked the high meadow along the fence lines where the cattle grazed, licking shoots of new spring grass that grew in the mowing on the edge of the pasture. He walked a shambling gait, his knees to and fro and his shoulders rocking. His hands were already a man's hands, cut square, with tapering fingers, and his hair hung loose to his shoulders. He was a boy whose mature body would be taller yet and of late he'd been experiencing frightening spurts of growth. On one night alone he grew an entire inch and when morning came he felt stretched and his body ached and he cried out when he sat up.

Okay, so I included a little more than usual of the beginning, but only because this book is so good! Please do not write this off as an 'animal' book. It's not about a horse. I repeat: it is not about a horse.

I know animal books or even books with animals in the title can turn off many readers. I read this for the color-coded reading challenge and it's easily one of my favorite reads for that challenge and quite possibly of all the reads I've done this year. You can read my review here. 

Review - Coal Black Horse

Coal Black Horse

By Robert Olmstead

200 pages

Description via Goodreads

His belly swooped low and dashed at his pelvis where it fluttered. This night was war. The falling rain was war. The clipped moon was war. The earth where they stood and the sky they stood under was war (103)

Despite the title, the story is not about a coal, black horse. It’s about a journey, a mini epic if you will. The journey of Robey Childs, a youth of fourteen, sent on an almost impossible mission to seek out his father on the battlefields during the peak of the Civil War. A coal, black horse leads him through the battle-torn North and South, but again it’s not about the horse, it’s about Robey figuring out the equation of war and how it will shape him into a man. 

A lot happens in this mini epic…mostly horrific things and death. It’s through these close encounters with death that Robey is able to internalize lessons of survival.

Lessons learned in a time of war…

…be angry.

…do not despair.

…trust no one.

…bad things will happen and you will do bad things.

…be unknown and unseen.

…the dead will kill you.

…you will gain immunity to the smell of death.

…everyone believes in the same mistake.

…people should be born twice.

…belief in God is finished.

…war is the nature of man.

…let the past go.

…you will become one of many failed humans.            

I’m sure there were more lessons throughout the book, but these were the ones I remembered. Some are potentially universal…or at least relevant in the war and conflict of today and possibly of the future.

Strewn over the few hundred acres was everything a man carried inside and out. There were enough limbs and organs, heads and hands, ribs and feet to stitch together body after body and were only in need of thread and needle and a celestial seamstress (116)

The language in this book is beautiful, there is powerful, vivid imagery and the subject matter is grisly, bleak and dark. If you don't like that combination, then this book might not be for you...I thought it was interesting that although the story is set in the Civil War, the issue of slavery is lightly brushed upon…not a complaint just an observation. My least favorite part of the book was Rachel. Not because she was a poorly developed character, but simply because I didn’t like her. If I were Robey I couldn’t justify her company. She was a hazard. My favorite part was the end, even though the last few chapters made me sad. Robey did what he had to do. Forever changed by war and no longer a boy, the son becomes the father.

 

Coal Black Horse 

Five stars.

 

What's Next

I haven't read anything for the Smooth Criminals Challenge in a while. I read most of the books for this challenge earlier in the year. I only need to read two more books to complete it, and I'm saving a particular one for the end of the year...Anyways my next few books will all be challenge related.

Smooth Criminals - Writer who did time

Color-coded - Brown

Color-coded - Blue