A Q&A with Robert Olmstead, Author of On the Same Page Novel, "Coal Black Horse"
Categories: In the News , Award Winners , Local Interest , Staff Picks , Fiction
Turning the Page had the opportunity to conduct an interview with Robert Olmstead, author of Coal Black Horse, Cincinnati’s 2008 On the Same Page novel for adults. We asked Mr. Olmstead some general questions, because we wouldn’t want to include spoilers for those of you who haven’t yet read this gripping tale of a young boy seeking his father across the landscape of the Civil War.
But once you have read Coal Black Horse, be sure to bring your own questions to the book-signing with Mr. Olmstead at the Main Library on Sunday, February 24, or to one of the other events at which he’ll appear. Meanwhile, check out the official Web site for the book.
TTP: Where did you get the inspiration for Coal Black Horse?
RO: In the 1980’s I was living in Pennsylvania not far from Gettysburg. Visiting the battlefield for the first time was a powerful experience. I didn’t know that much about the Civil War, just the usual stuff. So living there, walking that ground, it is my way that I wanted to know as much as I could. And of course everything I learned simply made me all the more curious to learn even more.
TTP: "In Coal Black Horse, Olmstead follows his true narrative voice and writes like a man on fire," according to the Denver Post review. The speed and ease of the storytelling conceal the fact that, apparently, it took you quite a while to write this novel. What was that journey like?
RO: It had been ten years since I published a book, this for various reasons I am not sure I fully understand. But that whole time I was working, and out of that work came Coal Black Horse and I anticipate some other things as well that are related to Coal Black Horse. So ten years… just to work with nicely rounded ideas. I suppose you could say I spent five years writing and then five years unwriting, and I think that’s where this thing of speed or sleekness comes from. The more I took out, the more the book seemed to lift.
TTP: Cincinnati was at one time home to more Appalachian-born people than any place outside of Appalachia itself. That makes this story of a boy's descent from the mountains of Virginia especially fitting as a selection for our city's On the Same Page community reading program. Do you see Robey, his family, and his world as characteristically Appalachian?
RO: Yes, I do. The curving spine of those naming mountains ranges from Maine to Georgia. All of those people are Appalachian. The people who, by choice or not, moved across the plain and up the rivers and entered the Allegheny Front to make their homes and a hard living as yeoman farmers. A very unique people.
TTP: Coal Black Horse includes many elements similar to some in Greek (and probably other) legends – especially Telemachus searching for his father, Odysseus, after the Trojan War and Orpheus leading his wife, Eurydice, out of the underworld. Did you incorporate these elements deliberately?
RO: No, and to be quite honest, I am not so well versed in Greek legend as to even accomplish such an intention. But I will say this—there are these ancient narratives and they are inside us. We actually live them every day. A boy being sent out by his mother to bring his father home, well, that’s something I did a few times.
TTP: Thank you, Mr. Olmstead, for this interview and for your beautiful book.
For more insights from Mr. Olmstead into Coal Black Horse, tune in to "Around Cincinnati" on WVXU-FM this Sunday at 7 p.m.
