Your characters do seem to retain faith under very diffi cult circumstances. Did any of them surprise you?
Yes, late in the novel, at Gettysburg when Robey takes justice into his own hands. I remember the days when writing that scene. I do not approve of what he did, but I could not stop him. It was as if his will was discovered and he became a powerful infl uence in every rewrite thereaft er, and there were quite a few. Hettie seemed to come onto the page all at once and it was only aft erward that I realized how powerful her presence is throughout the book. She is present in the opening and the ending, but for me she was never very far away. She possessed a kind of strength and wisdom and equanimity that the world so lacked. And of course the coal black horse becoming more prominent by increments until fi nally it became the title. I still have dreams about them.
Are there any other characters who are entering your dreams? Is there another novel unfolding in your mind?
I have never thought of writing as something I do but as a place where I go. Th ere I fi nd a community and a language and an experience of totality. So, yes. Th e event at the end of Coal Black Horse, the birth. When I fi rst realized that Rachel was pregnant, I felt an overwhelming responsibility and only later, when she eventually gives birth, did I know she was having twins. As I have mentioned, there are days you remember when you are working and these were two of them: her being pregnant and then having twins. I just couldn’t let that go, so in the book I’m working on now, I am telling their story, only it is years and years later and they are grown men.
A READING AND DISCUSSION GUIDE
1. Why do you think Robey’s mother sends him on a dangerous journey to fi nd his father? How do you feel about her decision?
2. Robey is reminded of his mother as he travels. For example, when he is shot: “He was in pain and his mother always said that pain was weakness leaving the body” (page 53). Where else in the story do you fi nd her presence? How would you characterize their relationship?
3. In what ways does the landscape at the farm, on the road, on the battlefi eld, and in Gettysburg inform the story and aff ect Robey and the people around him?
4. In his travels Robey sees a lot of strange, beautiful, and gruesome things. For example, the horse skeleton covered with vines and fl owers (page 26) and then the description of the man’s skeleton a few pages later (page 29). What other examples of this juxtaposition can you fi nd? How do they aff ect how you understand Robey’s journey?
5. Robey meets so many characters on the road—Morphew, the German, the upside-down boy, the goose man, the major, the pregnant woman in the graveyard, the scavenger brothers. How do these secondary characters help (or impair) Robey’s quest to fi nd his father?
6. What role do fate and second sight play in the novel? For example, Robey’s mother knows that Th omas Jackson has died without being told and that Robey must fi nd his father before July. What other examples can you fi nd, and how do fate and premonition guide your own life?
7. Morphew tells Robey that he is “in for an education” (page 21). Aft er a battle later in the story, Robey has this encounter with the coal black horse (page 112): “Th en he urged the horse on and it hesitated before responding as if to acknowledge that its rider had learned some valuable lesson and should be rewarded for such.” What is Robey learning? How does he acknowledge his education?
8. Th roughout the course of the novel Robey has to make hard decisions such as stealing food and horses. How does he feel about these decisions? In what ways do they seem to change him?
9. Robey doesn’t kill the man who rapes Rachel even though he has the opportunity and cause to do so. Why doesn’t he?
10. Religion plays a signifi cant role over the course of the story, perhaps most dramatically in this revelation on page 116: “He decided from that day forever aft er that there must live a heartless God to let such despair be visited on the earth, or as his father said, a God too tired and no longer capable of doing the work required of him.” How do religion and spirituality shape the novel?
11. Pages 124–26 describe the scavengers and minor businesses that spring up in the wake of battle. How does Robey seem to feel about this? How does this aff ect your perception of the Civil War?
12. Th e pregnant woman in the graveyard tells Robey that “people should be born twice: once as they are and once as they are not” (page 130). What does she mean by this? How does this tie into the themes of the novel?
13. How would you describe Robey’s relationship with his mother, the coal black horse, his father, and Rachel? How is each relationship diff erent and alike? And how do these relationships defi ne Robey as a boy and Robey as a man?
14. War has aff ected the land and the people—for example, the “raggedy old woman with a sun-stained and stroke-twisted face” (page 178). To what extent have the characters, the land, and even the animals been aff ected by the ravages of of war?
15. How does the birth of the twins change Robey? How does it change Rachel? Do you have the sense that things will be better or worse for the family? Why?
16. How has Robey’s story altered the way you think about war and violence? Has it made you think about love and faith diff erently? Are there particular passages that refl ect your opinions and feelings?
ROBERT OLMSTEAD is the author of five previous books (River Dogs, Soft Water, A Trail of Heart’s Blood Wherever We Go, America by Land, and Stay Here with Me). The recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship, an NEA grant, and the 2007 Heartland Award for Fiction, he is a professor at Ohio Wesleyan University.
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