Robert Olmstead knows why his novels including the new Coal Black Horse feature fathers, sons, and the connection between them. My dad was a drinker, he says. He taught me how to drive so I could drive him home. Coal Black Horse centers on a 14-year-old boy whose mom asks him to bring home his father from the Civil War. She gives him a special coat -- which is blue on one side and gray on the other -- to wear on his journey to the battlefield. Mothers have been sending sons out to look for fathers forever, says Olmstead, a professor at Ohio Wesleyan University. I just cant seem to stop writing these kinds of stories.
Tue., May 15, 7 p.m.
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