Far Bright Star

Robert Olmstead's Coal Black Horse was a bookseller favorite for a good reason. It is a feat of grand storytelling. It is a Civil War road novel focusing on a young man's journey to find his father who is a soldier in the war. A harrowing sometimes gruesome novel, it appeals to fans of Civil War fiction, equine lit and coming-of-age stories alike.

Olmstead's new novel surpasses its predecessor in the power of its story and potency of its prose. In Far Bright Star, the author has sharpened his focus and produced a stark and visceral novel that should win new fans while it solidifies the admiration of those who loved Coal Black Horse.

Set near the border of Mexico and New Mexico just prior to America's involvement in World War One, Far Bright Star introduces readers to two brothers, Xenophon and Napoleon, who are working for the U. S. Army. Xenophon trains the horses. Napoleon, the eventual lead character of the novel, trains the horsemen. The mission is to find Pancho Villa who has recently attacked a town in New Mexico. On one of their daily training expeditions, Napoleon and a small band of riders are tracked, chased and ultimately trapped by a well-organized group of Mexican bandits. This exhilarating, terrifying chase scene in which horses are run to the limits of their endurance, and the unavoidable carnage that ensues, unfolds page after page, chapter after chapter, in exquisite detail. The level of violence, vividly and unflinchingly described, is astonishing.

Olmstead's descriptive powers are on full display in endowing personality to the horses. I say this as an avowed non-horse person�Napoleon�s horse is as terrific a character as any other human in the novel. If the coal black character of the previous novel is what did it for you, there is much to transfix you in this one. Unless you are particularly squeamish�

About three quarters of the novel takes place within the span of about two days. I love a novel that goes for immediacy over sweep and Olmstead pulls it off with the precision of a master.

The easy comparison here, and the expected one from reviewers, is Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy. I'd just as soon leave that argument to the critics. I am perfectly comfortable however, wearing my bookseller's hat (Stetson or Resistol?), telling our customers "if you liked Cormac's border novels, you will love Far Bright Star." Olmstead packs a tremendous yet varied emotional punch into a relatively short novel. Both intimate and explosive, heart-pounding and reflective, Far Bright Star is a brilliant novel.

Set in 1916, Far Bright Star follows Napoleon Childs, an aging cavalryman, as he leads an expedition of inexperienced soldiers into the mountains of Mexico to hunt down Pancho Villa and bring him to justice. Though he is seasoned at such missions, things go terribly wrong and the patrol is brutally attacked. After witnessing the demise of his troops, Napoleon is left by his captors to die in the desert.

Through him we enter the conflicted mind of a warrior as he tries to survive against all odds, as he seeks to make sense of a lifetime of senseless wars and to reckon with the reasons a man would choose a life on the battlefield. Olmstead, an award-winning writer, uses his precise, descriptive prose to explore the endurance and fate of the last horse soldiers. The result is a tightly wound novel that is as moving as it is terrifying.

“Olmstead delivers another richly characterized, tightly woven story of nature, inevitability and the human condition ... Reminiscent of Kent Haruf, Olmstead’s brilliantly expressive, condensed tale of resilience and dusty determination flows with the kind of literary cadence few writers have mastered.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Another meditative, beautifully written novel from Olmstead . . . Olmstead is wondrously attuned to the natural world and the realities of war; he uses sand, heat and distant mountains as a stage set, and his narrative unfolds with all the formal rigor of a Greek tragedy . . . Brutal, tender and magnificent.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

The year is 1916. The enemy Pancho Villa, is elusive. The terrain is unforgiving, the intense heat and dust both relentless and overpowering. Through the mountains and across the long dry stretches of Mexico, Napoleon Childs, an aging cavalryman, leads an expedition of inexperienced horse soldiers on seemingly fruitless searches.

Napoleon has weathered the storms of battle with a toughness that has become like a second skin, with the Rattler, a horse who’s as flinty and seasoned as he. But this time, Napoleon can’t control one of his young soldiers who has a penchant for reckless, dramatic actions—and who singlehandedly, in his desire to prove himself, makes a move that is the beginning of the end. Before long, Napoleon’s patrol is at the mercy of an enemy who is intent not only on killing Napoleon’s men but on something much bigger: avenging a brutal act.

Robert Olmstead describes the experience of battle so viscerally that the reader feels the fear, the danger, and the dread. With the precision of a master, he tells the harrowing and transfixing story of the last of these intrepid warriors. 

Robert Olmstead is the author of six previous books. Coal Black Horse was the winner of the Heartland Prize for Fiction and the Ohioana Award, was a #1 Book Sense Pick, and was a Borders Original Voices pick. Olmstead is the recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship and an NEA grant, and he is a professor at Ohio Wesleyan University.

Publisher: Algonquin Books
Distributor: Workman Publishing Company
Publication Date: 05-26-2009
Pages: 207
Measurements: 8.63in X 5.94in X 0.81in X 0.81lb