A national bestseller. "A riveting tale of the American past and a brilliantly realized journey into the heart of darkness." — The Boston GlobeWinner of the Chicago Tribune Heartland Literary PrizeWhen 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 th...

"Gleaming, spellbinding fiction . . . Terrifying and abruptly beautiful, the new novel gleams with a masculine intensity; it is hard to read and hard to put down."— The Cleveland Plain DealerThe year is 1916. The enemy, Pancho Villa, is elusive. Terrain is unforgiving. 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. T...

Great narratives are built piece by piece, through myriad small tasks and careful moves. In this landmark book, Robert Olmstead shows how distinguished writers past and present have built their fiction and nonfiction. Through this writer's-eye analysis of more than 150 of literature's most finely crafted passages, you'll learn to read like a writer. Then, more than 500 innovative exercises challenge you to experiment with - and expand upon - the techniques of the masters, so you can use th...

This book of sundry poems from its authors life is meant for one and all who like poetry.

Novelist Robert Olmstead journeys back to his youth on his grandfather’s New Hampshire dairy farm to confront the ghosts that continue to afflict him in this coming-of-age memoir.Robert Olmstead has peopled his fiction with the rough-hewn farmers, loggers, and hired hands of rural New England mountain towns where getting drunk, getting into fights, and getting thrown out of bars are the normal rites of passage. In Stay Here with Me, Olmste...

Author Robert Olmstead's work has been called "brilliant and compelling" by the Chicago Tribune. Here, he takes us back to the Civil War. Robey Child, only 14, must go to the battlefield to bring his injured father home. Clad in a homemade uniform-gray on one side, blue on the other-and riding a powerful coal black horse, Robey sets out on a journey that will make him a man. "... a powerful, redemptive narrative."-Publishers Weekly

Acclaimed author Robert Olmstead's Far Bright Star "packs a potent emotional wallop" (Booklist). In 1916, aging cavalryman Napoleon Childs leads an expedition into Mexico to capture Pancho Villa and bring him to justice. But Childs' troops are wiped out, and he is left to die alone in the Mexican desert. "[This] brilliantly expressive, condensed tale of resilience and dusty determination flows with the kind of literary cadence few writers have mastered."-Publishers Weekly

The recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship and the Heartland Prize for his fiction, Robert Olmstead crafts riveting prose about love, war, and the human condition. Set in 1950, The Coldest Night follows Henry, a marine who arrives in Korea just before the devastating Chosin Reservoir battle. Days of brutal fighting leave Henry forever haunted by what he's seen, but the true depth of his scars doesn't become apparent until he returns home-and finds that the combat he loathed may be the closes...

From the award-winning author of Savage Country and The Coldest Night, an audacious novel about Pig and Skunk, two master thieves from a criminal family who agree to take on one last job: a daring heist to steal back a stolen painting and return it to its original owners—for a price.Meet Skunk: officially, he works as a cow hoof trimmer, traveling from farm to farm tending to livestock. But when the mood strikes, he’s a skilled burglar, wisecracki...

In September 1873, Elizabeth Coughlin, a widow bankrupted by her husband's folly and death, embarks on a buffalo hunt with her estranged and mysterious brother-in-law, Michael. With no money, no family, no job or security, she hopes to salvage something of her former life and the lives of the hired men and their families who depend on her. The buffalo hunt that her husband had planned, she now realizes, was his last hope for saving their land.Elizabeth and Michael plunge south acro...

For third-generation Irish-American Sean Corrigan, the past is whatever happened yesterday. Then, on his 21st birthday, his father gives him a musty leather-bound journal that changes his life. Written by his uncle, Michael, a man Sean never even knew existed, it draws Sean into a hunt for the truth. Did Michael, a former NYPD detective, really kill a black civil rights worker? When he fled the United States to hide in Ireland, why was he killed by the British? Who is the beautiful, auburn...

An Oprah's Book Club SelectionAn unflinching tale of turn-of-the-century Appalachian life, Gap Creek chronicles the challenging first year in the marriage of Julie Harmon and Hank Richards. After losing both her father and brother before turning 17, Julie faces fire, flood, grifters, sickness, and starvation with grim determination and remarkable stamina. By capturing the earthy details of rural life, including raw, riveting accounts of everything from hog slaughtering to ...