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Savage Country
From the writer of the bestselling Coal Black Horse, who has consistently created riveting fiction about pivotal moments in history, comes another spellbinding novel covering one of the most infamous hunts in the American West.
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 women who depend on her. The buffalo hunt that her husband had planned, she now realizes, was his last hope for saving the land.
Elizabeth and Michael plunge south across the aptly named Deadline demarcating Indian Territory from their home state of Kansas. Nothing could have prepared them for the dangers: rattlesnakes, rabies, wildfire, lightning strikes, blue northers, flash floods, threats to life in so many ways. They’re on borrowed time: the Comanche are in winter quarters, and the cruel work is unraveling their souls. They must get back alive.
This is a gripping, historically accurate account of that infamous hunt, which decimated the bison population to near extinction, and the story of a moment in our history in which mass destruction of an animal population was seen as the only route to economic solvency. And it is also a thrilling, readable tale of how that hunt changed Michael and Elizabeth forever.
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 women who depend on her. The buffalo hunt that her husband had planned, she now realizes, was his last hope for saving the land.
Elizabeth and Michael plunge south across the aptly named Deadline demarcating Indian Territory from their home state of Kansas. Nothing could have prepared them for the dangers: rattlesnakes, rabies, wildfire, lightning strikes, blue northers, flash floods, threats to life in so many ways. They’re on borrowed time: the Comanche are in winter quarters, and the cruel work is unraveling their souls. They must get back alive.
This is a gripping, historically accurate account of that infamous hunt, which decimated the bison population to near extinction, and the story of a moment in our history in which mass destruction of an animal population was seen as the only route to economic solvency. And it is also a thrilling, readable tale of how that hunt changed Michael and Elizabeth forever.
293 pages, Hardcover
First published September 26, 2017
326 people are currently reading
2136 people want to read
About the author
Robert Olmstead
24 books150 followersRobert Olmstead (born January 3, 1954) is an award-winning American novelist and educator.
Olmstead was born in 1954 in Westmoreland, New Hampshire. He grew up on a farm. After high school, he enrolled at Davidson College with a football scholarship, but left school after three semesters in which he compiled a poor academic record. He later attended Syracuse University, where he studied with Raymond Carver and Tobias Wolff and received both bachelor's and master's degrees, in 1977 and 1983, respectively.
He is currently the Director of Creative Writing at Ohio Wesleyan University. He has also served as the Senior Writer in Residence at Dickinson College and as the director of creative writing at Boise State University. Olmstead teaches in the Low-Residency MFA program in creative writing at Converse College .
Olmstead is the author of the novels America by Land, A Trail of Heart's Blood Wherever We Go and Soft Water. He is also the author of a memoir Stay Here With Me, as well as River Dogs, a collection of short stories, and the textbook Elements of the Writing Craft.[2] He was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1989 and an NEA Literature Fellowship in 1993.
His novel Coal Black Horse (2007) has received national acclaim, including the 2007 Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize for Fiction[7] and the 2008 Ohioana Book Award for Fiction; it was also selected for the "On the Same Page Cincinnati" reading program and the Choose to Read Ohio’s 2011 booklist.
Booklist has named his latest novel Far Bright Star (2009) (the second book in the Coal Black Horse trilogy) as one of the Top Ten Westerns of the Decade; the book also received the 2010 Western Writers of America Spur Award. One reviewer praised Olmstead's ability to "translate nature's revelatory beauty into words", commenting that Coal Black Horse evokes what Henry David Thoreau described in Walden as "the indescribable innocence and beneficence of Nature"; by contrast, the Mexican desert of Far Bright Star is "the place of the sun shriveled and the dried up". The Chicago Tribune review praised the authenticity of the imagery and experiences in Olmstead's writing, while also comparing his writing to that of Ernest Hemingway. It noted the influence of contemporary events, such as the guerrila warfare during the U.S. occupation of Fallujah during the Iraq War.
Olmstead was born in 1954 in Westmoreland, New Hampshire. He grew up on a farm. After high school, he enrolled at Davidson College with a football scholarship, but left school after three semesters in which he compiled a poor academic record. He later attended Syracuse University, where he studied with Raymond Carver and Tobias Wolff and received both bachelor's and master's degrees, in 1977 and 1983, respectively.
He is currently the Director of Creative Writing at Ohio Wesleyan University. He has also served as the Senior Writer in Residence at Dickinson College and as the director of creative writing at Boise State University. Olmstead teaches in the Low-Residency MFA program in creative writing at Converse College .
Olmstead is the author of the novels America by Land, A Trail of Heart's Blood Wherever We Go and Soft Water. He is also the author of a memoir Stay Here With Me, as well as River Dogs, a collection of short stories, and the textbook Elements of the Writing Craft.[2] He was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1989 and an NEA Literature Fellowship in 1993.
His novel Coal Black Horse (2007) has received national acclaim, including the 2007 Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize for Fiction[7] and the 2008 Ohioana Book Award for Fiction; it was also selected for the "On the Same Page Cincinnati" reading program and the Choose to Read Ohio’s 2011 booklist.
Booklist has named his latest novel Far Bright Star (2009) (the second book in the Coal Black Horse trilogy) as one of the Top Ten Westerns of the Decade; the book also received the 2010 Western Writers of America Spur Award. One reviewer praised Olmstead's ability to "translate nature's revelatory beauty into words", commenting that Coal Black Horse evokes what Henry David Thoreau described in Walden as "the indescribable innocence and beneficence of Nature"; by contrast, the Mexican desert of Far Bright Star is "the place of the sun shriveled and the dried up". The Chicago Tribune review praised the authenticity of the imagery and experiences in Olmstead's writing, while also comparing his writing to that of Ernest Hemingway. It noted the influence of contemporary events, such as the guerrila warfare during the U.S. occupation of Fallujah during the Iraq War.
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April 22, 2018
When unencumbered by people, buffalo thrive on the plains of North America.
In 1800 the estimated population of bison in the United States was 60 million (60,000,000).
By 1899 they faced near-extinction at a population count of 3 hundred (300).
Savage Country is Robert Olmstead's fictional story telling of the hunt and slaughter of that last great buffalo herd.
Newly widowed Elizabeth Coughlin feels she must carry out her late husbands planned buffalo hunt in order to save their ranch from a local money lender. Along with her will be her husbands long lost brother who had fought on the opposite side of the American Civil War. Together they lead a crew of veterans that had fought under the command of Elizabeth's husband. Elizabeth also hires a few extra hands from the disparate people they come across in need of work, some good - some bad. The length of time this hunt covers is many months. The sweltering heat of the summer sun was such that at times they were forced to travel at night. Winter time blizzards came upon them so fast they had to race back to camp in order not to freeze to death on the buffalo grounds. For the readers that enjoy a little romance within there reading, there is some of that. For the rest of us there is a big red dog.
In the United States today the bison population is managed by the National Parks Service and Wildlife Refuge. Their numbers are back to around 360 thousand (360,000).
excerpts arr spoiler(ish)
In 1800 the estimated population of bison in the United States was 60 million (60,000,000).
By 1899 they faced near-extinction at a population count of 3 hundred (300).
Savage Country is Robert Olmstead's fictional story telling of the hunt and slaughter of that last great buffalo herd.
Newly widowed Elizabeth Coughlin feels she must carry out her late husbands planned buffalo hunt in order to save their ranch from a local money lender. Along with her will be her husbands long lost brother who had fought on the opposite side of the American Civil War. Together they lead a crew of veterans that had fought under the command of Elizabeth's husband. Elizabeth also hires a few extra hands from the disparate people they come across in need of work, some good - some bad. The length of time this hunt covers is many months. The sweltering heat of the summer sun was such that at times they were forced to travel at night. Winter time blizzards came upon them so fast they had to race back to camp in order not to freeze to death on the buffalo grounds. For the readers that enjoy a little romance within there reading, there is some of that. For the rest of us there is a big red dog.
In the United States today the bison population is managed by the National Parks Service and Wildlife Refuge. Their numbers are back to around 360 thousand (360,000).
excerpts arr spoiler(ish)
June 19, 2020
I need to preface this with the fact that my favorite book of all time is a historical and it just happens to have won the Pulitzer (having a Pulitzer is not a prerequisite for being a great book). Savage Country comes real close to being one of my favorites. The prose is magnificent. However, I wouldn’t recommend this book to just anyone. I like the west and this time period, which influences my opinion. This book combines the action and story from the best of Wilbur Smith (the early stories of the two families in Africa) and the prose of Cormack McCarthy. There are a lot of clichés in how books are describe but one fits so aptly here; I was sorry when the book ended. I would have easily read twice the number of pages. The second frequently use cliché: I’m going to be thinking about this book for a long time, is definitely true.
Oddly enough, this book isn’t what it seems. If you subtract the odyssey plot, the danger, and horror of navigating through the old west you find that this is merely a vehicle to tell a very tender love story.
David Putnam
The Author of The Bruno Johnson series.
Oddly enough, this book isn’t what it seems. If you subtract the odyssey plot, the danger, and horror of navigating through the old west you find that this is merely a vehicle to tell a very tender love story.
David Putnam
The Author of The Bruno Johnson series.
September 28, 2017
Kansas, 1844, Elizabeth finds herself without monetary means after the death of her husband. she learns that he had hinged everything on a buffalo hunt, a hunt he hoped would provide him with the necessary funds the clear his debts. His estranged brother Michael, makes an appearance and Elizabeth begs him to take on this hunt, and to take her with him.
The last buffalo hunt, two powerful characters, gorgeous writing, outstanding imagery of nature, but a very brutal time. The title is apropos, a time when survival was less than certain. Where many things could kill you, snake bites, the betrayal of other men willing to take what you have, by whatever means necessary, the changing, harsh weather, and Indians. I loved how he portrayed Elizabeth, a deep inner strength, but kind when needed, decisive in her thinking, and willing to inhabit and endure these harsh conditions, alongside her workers.
The buffalo hunt that basically wiped out the herd, is historical fact. Have to admit at cringing at the very graphic descriptions of the slaughter, skinning and cutting of these noble animals. Yet, it was survival, during a time when one had to make their own way, their own money and living by whatever means they could. Thought this novel was very well done, as well as providing an insight of a particular harsh period of time.
ARC from Netgalley.
The last buffalo hunt, two powerful characters, gorgeous writing, outstanding imagery of nature, but a very brutal time. The title is apropos, a time when survival was less than certain. Where many things could kill you, snake bites, the betrayal of other men willing to take what you have, by whatever means necessary, the changing, harsh weather, and Indians. I loved how he portrayed Elizabeth, a deep inner strength, but kind when needed, decisive in her thinking, and willing to inhabit and endure these harsh conditions, alongside her workers.
The buffalo hunt that basically wiped out the herd, is historical fact. Have to admit at cringing at the very graphic descriptions of the slaughter, skinning and cutting of these noble animals. Yet, it was survival, during a time when one had to make their own way, their own money and living by whatever means they could. Thought this novel was very well done, as well as providing an insight of a particular harsh period of time.
ARC from Netgalley.
November 16, 2017
1873 Kansas. Under the bowed heads of drooping sunflowers, death is always just a heartbeat away. The smell of blood hangs in the air, as whirling dust devils wind their errant paths along the way.
Follow a band of buffalo hunters, skinners, and butchers making its way to what will turn out to be one of the last major buffalo hunts. Battling the forces of nature, savage Indians, and murderous miscreants, the trip will take its toll. Nursing old wounds, pondering heavy truths, blind ambition, and insatiable greed. The vast herd of buffalo will pay the price, decimated. Rough and raw, it is a fascinating look at this volatile time in history.
Follow a band of buffalo hunters, skinners, and butchers making its way to what will turn out to be one of the last major buffalo hunts. Battling the forces of nature, savage Indians, and murderous miscreants, the trip will take its toll. Nursing old wounds, pondering heavy truths, blind ambition, and insatiable greed. The vast herd of buffalo will pay the price, decimated. Rough and raw, it is a fascinating look at this volatile time in history.
August 21, 2017
In 1873, Kansas had many boom towns that were now bust. Bankrupt families sold their possessions for pennies on the dollar and took locomotives out of town with plans for a fresh start. Construction sites were abandoned, streets were littered, residents lived in miserable shacks, tents and dugouts. This is what Michael Coughlin encountered when he came to town.
Michael arrived at Meadowlark, home of brother David, and was greeted by David's widow, Elizabeth. Upon David's death, Mr. Whitechurch of the Land Office badgered her to settle her debt driving off her cattle as partial payment. Full payment was next to impossible in these difficult times. Michael decided to go to Whitechurch and pay off the loan. Not so easy. Whitechurch had jacked up the price of the settlement and posted two gunmen inside his office. Michael informed Whitechurch that as a sharpshooter, he had killed "better men than you". A deal made, Michael left with the signed documents. Whitechurch and his hired goons were not about to let this transaction rest.
Michael Coughlin had circled the globe. His job had been to shoot large mammals, preserving and collecting their skins for private collections. Zoos around the world paid top dollar to add captured wild animals to their menageries. Elizabeth explained David's plan to Michael, a way to cancel his debts. By going south to hunt buffalo, he hoped to make a financial killing. Elizabeth was determined to hunt buffalo in David's stead using his maps and journals for guidance and enlisting Michael at the helm as sharpshooter, scout and adviser. Buffalo hunting required a complement of men. Sharpshooters were needed to kill buffalo, butchers and skinners to prepare meat and carefully remove buffalo hides readying them for sale. Some men employed were vagrants, no better than murderers, drunks or horse thieves. The work force was fluid, men would come and go.
Buffalo hunting was punishing. The land and weather conditions were unforgiving: torrential rain, droughts, prairie fires or heavy snow blanketing the land. Venturing into Comanche territory along with the possibility of Whitechurch following their movements for revenge created the need for posting night watches to secure the stock and camp grounds. Initially, Elizabeth relied heavily upon Michael to run the operation. She slowly came into her own. The men and women employees living back home at Meadowlark depended on her. She was determined that the buffalo hunt be successful while the savage country brutally exacted its cost.
" Savage Country" by Robert Olmstead was a stark historical rendering of one of the last post Civil War buffalo hunts. The untamed wilderness did not provide the journey Elizabeth expected but she was unwavering. She would play the hand she was dealt. Robert Olmstead has written a gritty, totally engrossing tome of the Old West. Unputdownable!
Thank you Algonquin Books and Net Galley for the opportunity to read and review "Savage Country".
Michael arrived at Meadowlark, home of brother David, and was greeted by David's widow, Elizabeth. Upon David's death, Mr. Whitechurch of the Land Office badgered her to settle her debt driving off her cattle as partial payment. Full payment was next to impossible in these difficult times. Michael decided to go to Whitechurch and pay off the loan. Not so easy. Whitechurch had jacked up the price of the settlement and posted two gunmen inside his office. Michael informed Whitechurch that as a sharpshooter, he had killed "better men than you". A deal made, Michael left with the signed documents. Whitechurch and his hired goons were not about to let this transaction rest.
Michael Coughlin had circled the globe. His job had been to shoot large mammals, preserving and collecting their skins for private collections. Zoos around the world paid top dollar to add captured wild animals to their menageries. Elizabeth explained David's plan to Michael, a way to cancel his debts. By going south to hunt buffalo, he hoped to make a financial killing. Elizabeth was determined to hunt buffalo in David's stead using his maps and journals for guidance and enlisting Michael at the helm as sharpshooter, scout and adviser. Buffalo hunting required a complement of men. Sharpshooters were needed to kill buffalo, butchers and skinners to prepare meat and carefully remove buffalo hides readying them for sale. Some men employed were vagrants, no better than murderers, drunks or horse thieves. The work force was fluid, men would come and go.
Buffalo hunting was punishing. The land and weather conditions were unforgiving: torrential rain, droughts, prairie fires or heavy snow blanketing the land. Venturing into Comanche territory along with the possibility of Whitechurch following their movements for revenge created the need for posting night watches to secure the stock and camp grounds. Initially, Elizabeth relied heavily upon Michael to run the operation. She slowly came into her own. The men and women employees living back home at Meadowlark depended on her. She was determined that the buffalo hunt be successful while the savage country brutally exacted its cost.
" Savage Country" by Robert Olmstead was a stark historical rendering of one of the last post Civil War buffalo hunts. The untamed wilderness did not provide the journey Elizabeth expected but she was unwavering. She would play the hand she was dealt. Robert Olmstead has written a gritty, totally engrossing tome of the Old West. Unputdownable!
Thank you Algonquin Books and Net Galley for the opportunity to read and review "Savage Country".
July 31, 2017
This book was so good that I devoured it in a couple of sittings. It fulfills a hunger I have for some kind of wisdom or parable about how the West was won for the American Dream, but lost for Manifest Destiny. How to resolve the American frontier and its untamed wonders as the doorway to imagination, adventure, and personal challenge in the wilds of nature with the genocide and the rape of the earth that resulted. This novel is a magnificent attempt to fill in this gap, achieving lyrical wonders with biblical and mythical overtones. I’d put it on the same mental shelf that spans McMurtry’s “Lonesome Dove” and McCarthy’s “Blood Meridian.”
The lead quote from Deuteronomy sets the stage:
See now that I, even I am he, and there is no god with me, I kill and make alive, I wound and I heal, neither is there any can deliver out of my hand.
The initial setting is western Kansas eight years after the Civil War. Michael Coughlin has just arrived in town to settle the affairs of his older brother David, who has recently died, leaving his wife Elizabeth and a farm on the verge of bankruptcy. What he encounters for a community felt like a vision of hell:
Some distance from town he was met with the smell of raw sewage and creosote, the stink of lye and kerosene oil, the carrion of dead and slaughtered animals unfit for human consumption.
The year was 1873 and all about was the evidence of boom and bust, shattered dreams, foolish ambition, depredation, shame, greed, and cruelty. Notes were being called in for pennies on the dollar. Money was scarce and whole families were pauperized.
For weeks countless swarms of locusts, brown-black and brickyellow, darkened the air like ash from a conflagration, their jaws biting all things for what could be eaten.
Michael pays off his brother’s loans and informs his wife in the laconic way of most heroes of the West . She turns out to be a tough cookie, the kind that doesn’t like to being beholden to anyone. Her resilience feels admirable: “Grief seemed as if something she could not afford”. To save her farm on her own account, she proposes to hire him to help manage a buffalo hunt in the Comanche part of Indian Territory, where the last great herd roams. There is a good market for hides and meat when delivered to markets by wagon, river, and railroad. Michael has some months before he is due to meet up with his partners in an enterprise of collecting the hides and live specimens of wild birds and animals for zoos, museums, and private collectors back East and in Europe. It’s hard to say no to the last family member he has left. To his argument about the dangers she would face, she convinces him that her experience as a nurse during the Civil War is proof enough of her capabilities.
Thus, we begin a tale of characters with nobility and decent hearts, innocent in many ways, yet engaged in the near extinction of the buffalo, which stands out as the epitome of blind greed and a great collective crime of humanity. Elizabeth indeed exhibits great skills in marshalling the human and material resources necessary for the six-month foray they plan. Along the way, we look for glimmers of growth in the conscience of Elizabeth and Michael over the evil they are participating in. The dangers they encounter and the human deaths that result from their enterprise are part of that awakening.
Quite a motley collection of people join their hunting enterprise, which will have to be self-sufficient in the wilderness. Among the various people hired as skinners and butchers are Southern rednecks who eventually approach a near mutiny over her hiring a group of freed slaves for the work required. Her ban on alcohol soon has to be rescinded to keep the rowdy elements satisfied. A young boy running away from an abusive father is effectively adopted by Elizabeth. A minister friend of Elizabeth’s, originally from an aristocratic Massachusetts family, joins the entourage because of his interest in seeing the savage residents of the West, Indian and otherwise, civilized by religion. His other interest is capitalizing on his experiences through lurid stories and novels that he finds to sell well. Plus, he is romantically interested in Elizabeth. The minister is a complex character, but one with an ugly hollowness inside:
All his life he’d been torn between the sacred word and the secular world. There was an emptiness he desperately needed to fill. It was a need to feel something never felt before, to say something never said before.
Michael barely tolerates the minister:
He despised such as the reverend doctor, their worlds of righteousness and reward, punishment and damnation.
…As with all religious men, he was a man of many ideas but only one conclusion. …
“Hardship is God’s gift for self-improvement.”
“Then you must be improved by the many snakes,” Michael said.
Yet he begins to recognize parallels with the motives of the man he works for in his business collecting animals and hide, one Mr. Salt:
…just as the reverend doctor was in the pursuit of souls, men such as Mr. Salt were in pursuit of all the phenomena of nature. They would possess the flora and fauna of the earth, its machines and art, its mineral, water, fire, and air. They would own the rising and setting sun, the moon and the planets, the shining stars and the meteors, the seasons and the change of season, the clouds, the wind, the rain and snow. They would possess the created and the uncreated. They would own history.
“Like Noah,” the reverend doctor said.
The potential for romance between Michael and Elizabeth slowly arises as we witness his protectiveness for her and her admiration for his style:
“You should never leave camp alone, even for a stroll.”
“Please do not underestimate me,” she said.
She’d watched him closely these first days on the road and was learning how strange and capable he was. He had a capacity for silence and was rarely surprised by what he came upon. When tired, he coiled down in sleep and Sabi [his dog] snuggled egglike into his body, and at any time he was liable to get up, day or night, and have coffee and smoke. Whereas David had been capable of disappearing inside himself for days at a time, Michael always seemed to be alert, present, and expectant, and unlike his brother, he seemed to require just enough for himself, the horse, and the dogs.
During the long journey to the Canadian River valley in Indian Territory and implementation of a systematic slaughter and processing of buffalo, death comes knocking on the door for a significant number of their party. Most are acts of God, like the horse kick to the head that nailed Elizabeth’s husband. Think of the hazards of prairie fires, lightning, snakebite, falling off a horse, downing in a flood or crossing a river, blizzards, deadly diseases like malaria. The horror of a man infected by rabies and having to be put down like a mad dog was particularly disturbing.
Olmstead is not exactly trying to educate us away from the notion that personal violence was the prime hazard to life on the frontier. Yes, he downplays cutthroat drifters and gunslingers as part of the saga. And except for a few bands of Comanche and Kiowa, the Indians have all been subdued by this time in history. Yet there was still significant space in this story for murder and mayhem, especially in the final sections. For example, the hostilities among members of the hunting crew has its outcomes. And the threat of a Comanche raid is bought home by an encounter with the bodies of a recent slaughter of a pioneer family in transit. It’s striking how much the characters, many of them participants in the bloodiest war of the century, take the incident in stride just as they do for natural disasters. Another small incident with a Comanche elder dying from gunshot and his white wife involves a disturbing form of cultural violence when the crew from the hunting party strip his body of all his possessions and clothes for souvenirs. The wife, apparently kidnapped long ago, surprises them by choosing to escape for a return to the tribe rather than return to white society (as with Quanah Parker’s mother Cynthia Ann Parker).
In a sense the book’s theme is more about cultural and ecological violence than physical violence. Michael is more compromised in that regard, than Elizabeth especially with his involvement in the African ivory trade, which depended heavily on slavery for transporting the goods. We get some mitigating reasons for a nihilism behind Michael’s history owing to certain personal tragedies. And we see a thawing of his heart, as when he courageously saves several people in a severe blizzard. Still, despite his obvious heroism, it’s a big challenge for the reader to forgive him for his past and as the chief shooter for the buffalo hunt. To really grok the historical forces that led him and other otherwise decent people to do what they did. Time and again, the U.S. failed to stop white man’s incursions into Indian lands for resources like land for settlement and gold in the Black Hills and elsewhere (and some historians argue they couldn’t have stopped). Now we get a human face to the competition for a buffalo harvest, replete with a widow trying to save her farm. That gives this a tragedy a poignant element in addition to the mythical, biblical, or elegiac elements associated with the inexorable end to wilderness and decimation of native forms of society and ecologies.
A dream by Michael while being laid low with malaria under the care of Elizabeth raises our hopes for changing his ways:
With the next fit he went under again. The buffalo were coming in countless numbers from a country under the ground. They poured from the cavelike opening and swarmed the land and he recognized them as the buffalo he’d killed and they were alive and in his dream he was the one who was dead and lost on the plain. Venomous reptiles coiled among the rocks, panicking the horse he rode, and paralyzed, he was falling to ground in their midst. He was bitten again and again and each bite was a pinch and a shock of lightening-like electricity. He could see the stream of poison entering the channels of his veins. Their smell was the sulfur of a fiery hell. There were children and the snakes were coiled around their arms or legs and striking with their fangs, and wherever they struck, the children turned black.
Olmstead hooked me good with this outstanding “Coal Black Horse”, a coming-of-age tale of a boy caught up in the Civil War. He really masters putting personal lives, their development, and quest for meaning on the stage of historical turning points, all with a marvelous lyricism. I now want to catch up with the two books between that one and the current one, novels that follows descendants from the first book in their involvement with the Mexican War and the Korean War in the other.
This book was provided by the publisher for review through the Netgalley program.
The lead quote from Deuteronomy sets the stage:
See now that I, even I am he, and there is no god with me, I kill and make alive, I wound and I heal, neither is there any can deliver out of my hand.
The initial setting is western Kansas eight years after the Civil War. Michael Coughlin has just arrived in town to settle the affairs of his older brother David, who has recently died, leaving his wife Elizabeth and a farm on the verge of bankruptcy. What he encounters for a community felt like a vision of hell:
Some distance from town he was met with the smell of raw sewage and creosote, the stink of lye and kerosene oil, the carrion of dead and slaughtered animals unfit for human consumption.
The year was 1873 and all about was the evidence of boom and bust, shattered dreams, foolish ambition, depredation, shame, greed, and cruelty. Notes were being called in for pennies on the dollar. Money was scarce and whole families were pauperized.
For weeks countless swarms of locusts, brown-black and brickyellow, darkened the air like ash from a conflagration, their jaws biting all things for what could be eaten.
Michael pays off his brother’s loans and informs his wife in the laconic way of most heroes of the West . She turns out to be a tough cookie, the kind that doesn’t like to being beholden to anyone. Her resilience feels admirable: “Grief seemed as if something she could not afford”. To save her farm on her own account, she proposes to hire him to help manage a buffalo hunt in the Comanche part of Indian Territory, where the last great herd roams. There is a good market for hides and meat when delivered to markets by wagon, river, and railroad. Michael has some months before he is due to meet up with his partners in an enterprise of collecting the hides and live specimens of wild birds and animals for zoos, museums, and private collectors back East and in Europe. It’s hard to say no to the last family member he has left. To his argument about the dangers she would face, she convinces him that her experience as a nurse during the Civil War is proof enough of her capabilities.
Thus, we begin a tale of characters with nobility and decent hearts, innocent in many ways, yet engaged in the near extinction of the buffalo, which stands out as the epitome of blind greed and a great collective crime of humanity. Elizabeth indeed exhibits great skills in marshalling the human and material resources necessary for the six-month foray they plan. Along the way, we look for glimmers of growth in the conscience of Elizabeth and Michael over the evil they are participating in. The dangers they encounter and the human deaths that result from their enterprise are part of that awakening.
Quite a motley collection of people join their hunting enterprise, which will have to be self-sufficient in the wilderness. Among the various people hired as skinners and butchers are Southern rednecks who eventually approach a near mutiny over her hiring a group of freed slaves for the work required. Her ban on alcohol soon has to be rescinded to keep the rowdy elements satisfied. A young boy running away from an abusive father is effectively adopted by Elizabeth. A minister friend of Elizabeth’s, originally from an aristocratic Massachusetts family, joins the entourage because of his interest in seeing the savage residents of the West, Indian and otherwise, civilized by religion. His other interest is capitalizing on his experiences through lurid stories and novels that he finds to sell well. Plus, he is romantically interested in Elizabeth. The minister is a complex character, but one with an ugly hollowness inside:
All his life he’d been torn between the sacred word and the secular world. There was an emptiness he desperately needed to fill. It was a need to feel something never felt before, to say something never said before.
Michael barely tolerates the minister:
He despised such as the reverend doctor, their worlds of righteousness and reward, punishment and damnation.
…As with all religious men, he was a man of many ideas but only one conclusion. …
“Hardship is God’s gift for self-improvement.”
“Then you must be improved by the many snakes,” Michael said.
Yet he begins to recognize parallels with the motives of the man he works for in his business collecting animals and hide, one Mr. Salt:
…just as the reverend doctor was in the pursuit of souls, men such as Mr. Salt were in pursuit of all the phenomena of nature. They would possess the flora and fauna of the earth, its machines and art, its mineral, water, fire, and air. They would own the rising and setting sun, the moon and the planets, the shining stars and the meteors, the seasons and the change of season, the clouds, the wind, the rain and snow. They would possess the created and the uncreated. They would own history.
“Like Noah,” the reverend doctor said.
The potential for romance between Michael and Elizabeth slowly arises as we witness his protectiveness for her and her admiration for his style:
“You should never leave camp alone, even for a stroll.”
“Please do not underestimate me,” she said.
She’d watched him closely these first days on the road and was learning how strange and capable he was. He had a capacity for silence and was rarely surprised by what he came upon. When tired, he coiled down in sleep and Sabi [his dog] snuggled egglike into his body, and at any time he was liable to get up, day or night, and have coffee and smoke. Whereas David had been capable of disappearing inside himself for days at a time, Michael always seemed to be alert, present, and expectant, and unlike his brother, he seemed to require just enough for himself, the horse, and the dogs.
During the long journey to the Canadian River valley in Indian Territory and implementation of a systematic slaughter and processing of buffalo, death comes knocking on the door for a significant number of their party. Most are acts of God, like the horse kick to the head that nailed Elizabeth’s husband. Think of the hazards of prairie fires, lightning, snakebite, falling off a horse, downing in a flood or crossing a river, blizzards, deadly diseases like malaria. The horror of a man infected by rabies and having to be put down like a mad dog was particularly disturbing.
Olmstead is not exactly trying to educate us away from the notion that personal violence was the prime hazard to life on the frontier. Yes, he downplays cutthroat drifters and gunslingers as part of the saga. And except for a few bands of Comanche and Kiowa, the Indians have all been subdued by this time in history. Yet there was still significant space in this story for murder and mayhem, especially in the final sections. For example, the hostilities among members of the hunting crew has its outcomes. And the threat of a Comanche raid is bought home by an encounter with the bodies of a recent slaughter of a pioneer family in transit. It’s striking how much the characters, many of them participants in the bloodiest war of the century, take the incident in stride just as they do for natural disasters. Another small incident with a Comanche elder dying from gunshot and his white wife involves a disturbing form of cultural violence when the crew from the hunting party strip his body of all his possessions and clothes for souvenirs. The wife, apparently kidnapped long ago, surprises them by choosing to escape for a return to the tribe rather than return to white society (as with Quanah Parker’s mother Cynthia Ann Parker).
In a sense the book’s theme is more about cultural and ecological violence than physical violence. Michael is more compromised in that regard, than Elizabeth especially with his involvement in the African ivory trade, which depended heavily on slavery for transporting the goods. We get some mitigating reasons for a nihilism behind Michael’s history owing to certain personal tragedies. And we see a thawing of his heart, as when he courageously saves several people in a severe blizzard. Still, despite his obvious heroism, it’s a big challenge for the reader to forgive him for his past and as the chief shooter for the buffalo hunt. To really grok the historical forces that led him and other otherwise decent people to do what they did. Time and again, the U.S. failed to stop white man’s incursions into Indian lands for resources like land for settlement and gold in the Black Hills and elsewhere (and some historians argue they couldn’t have stopped). Now we get a human face to the competition for a buffalo harvest, replete with a widow trying to save her farm. That gives this a tragedy a poignant element in addition to the mythical, biblical, or elegiac elements associated with the inexorable end to wilderness and decimation of native forms of society and ecologies.
A dream by Michael while being laid low with malaria under the care of Elizabeth raises our hopes for changing his ways:
With the next fit he went under again. The buffalo were coming in countless numbers from a country under the ground. They poured from the cavelike opening and swarmed the land and he recognized them as the buffalo he’d killed and they were alive and in his dream he was the one who was dead and lost on the plain. Venomous reptiles coiled among the rocks, panicking the horse he rode, and paralyzed, he was falling to ground in their midst. He was bitten again and again and each bite was a pinch and a shock of lightening-like electricity. He could see the stream of poison entering the channels of his veins. Their smell was the sulfur of a fiery hell. There were children and the snakes were coiled around their arms or legs and striking with their fangs, and wherever they struck, the children turned black.
Olmstead hooked me good with this outstanding “Coal Black Horse”, a coming-of-age tale of a boy caught up in the Civil War. He really masters putting personal lives, their development, and quest for meaning on the stage of historical turning points, all with a marvelous lyricism. I now want to catch up with the two books between that one and the current one, novels that follows descendants from the first book in their involvement with the Mexican War and the Korean War in the other.
This book was provided by the publisher for review through the Netgalley program.
October 27, 2021
The year was 1873 and all about was the evidence of boom and bust, shattered dreams, foolish ambition, depredations, shame, greed, and cruelty.
Michael Coughlin, soldier of fortune and professional big-game hunter, comes to Kansas in the aftermath of the Civil War, to bury his brother David, killed by a horse kick after bankrupting his farm. Elizabeth, his brother’s wife, is destitute, left only with debts to a venal money-lender, a map and some ambitious plans of her husband to make some fast money in a buffalo hunt. [ Industry wanted every buffalo hide it could get.]
Elizabeth convinces Michael to lead this expedition into what was still at that time Indian Territory, a wild country not yet incorporated into the United States.
Somewhere between the north fork of the Canadian and Red Rivers of Texas, and from about the 100th meridian to the eastern border of New Mexico, the last herd of buffalo moved.
Robert Olmstead is the best example that a theme is not exhausted after some other great writer pens what the critics consider the ultimate tome on the subject. I’m referencing here “Butcher’s Crossing” by John Williams, one of my all time favourites in literary westerns. Olmstead brings to the table his own brand of minimalist writing that nevertheless manages to be lyrical and informative and merciless. I would put him in the same class as Michael Ondaatje or Ron Rash, among the best contemporary writers of historical fiction.
They had no idea of what lay ahead. They’d keep their rifles within reach and they were determined to never be off their guard, but they didn’t know. Whether the fault of the times or the fault of their own, he had the painful feeling he could place no reliance on them and assumed them to be no better than murderers, liars, drunks, horse thieves, robbers, failures.
The title chosen for this epic saga of Man against Fate is well chosen. Michael and Elizabeth lead their group of mercenaries, outcasts and fortune seekers deep into unknown territory, far from civilization and subject to raging firestorms, floodwaters, weather extremes and countless dangers from animal and human alike. Michael’s experience from his war years and from his previous expeditions in Africa are the greatest asset of the expedition, while Elizabeth contributes her determination and her organizational skills. But portentous signs and accidents spell dark days ahead, before they even reach the hunting grounds.
As the night wore on the skies glowed with the reflection of the distant fires and it was as if they were driving beside hell itself.
Once they reach the spot marked on the map left behind by David it is as if they have stumbled upon Shangri-La, an unspoiled garden of Eden full of beauty and promise.
... here were countless herds of deer, wild horses, and buffalo. There was elk, antelope, turkey, jackrabbit, quail, grouse, and chickens. There were honeybees and songbirds and the sky shadowed with raptors. There were bee caves and bee trees flowing with honey. The lush grass ran to the horizon and seamlessly filled the laterals running into the Wolf and he thought this is how the world was in the beginning.
We know the score, of course, of what happens when humans find peace, innocence in a land unspoilt. They start messing it up.
On the sixth day, from the low knoll he looked down at his kingdom of death. It was a windswept and solitary place. The ravens, the wolves, the coyotes, the skinners, the butchers – they waited as if they were paralyzed and had yet to recover from the sound of the rifles. The rest of the herd, grazing and ruminating, drifted west, the cloud shadows slowly going before.
Every aspect of the killing and processing of the skins and meat of buffalo is described in clear and concise terms, but the main draw of the narrative is in the perspective of Michael an Elizabeth as they struggle with their conscience over the slaughter and over their responsibilities to the people, some of them young boys, they have put in mortal danger in order to establish the hunting camp. As each disaster and accident that could possibly happens comes to pass and claims its victims, Michael and Elizabeth feel this burden of responsibility lying heavier and heavier on their shoulders, stifling the tentative and delicate feelings that develop between them.
A visit from a group of fugitive Negros led by a Pastor Starling [ after the war, being black and free was a crime ] exposes the raging racism of their own team while a wounded Indian bravo stumbling into their camp with his white-born wife invites to reflections about the value of freedom and civilization that is hell bent on destruction and hatred. The tale rises to almost Biblical proportions, with puny humans spun around like toys by the whim of cruel gods.
Finally, this same so-called civilization comes back to threaten the last hopes of a brighter future Elizabeth and Michael might still harbour.
This place was as if a minister of truth revealing, and those truths were simple and hard and cared little for the manners of human beings. She felt inside the breaking of whatever faith she possessed in mankind.
>>><<<>>><<<
One of the best westerns I’ve discovered this year (and I have just finished ‘Warlock’. so it has some serious competition) and confirmation that the excellent ‘Coal Black Horse’ was not a fluke. I will add Robert Olmstead to my list of must-read writers.
September 12, 2017
** 3.75 stars, rounded up **
This is a raw, gritty story about the buffalo hunting of the late 1800s that drew the species to near extinction. Told in spare, exacting prose that still manages to paint incredible, vivid imagery of the dangers and depravations of life on the plains and of the times, this book touches the reader’s senses.
To me, this novel is a look back at the behaviors of man and the long-lasting consequences of greed and excess – even though the book did not highlight that theme in any overt manner. That is what stopped this from being a 5-star read for me, personally – the lack of moral stance taken, and perhaps I also wanted the characters to feel a much greater sense of remorse than they did. But the mentality of the characters was largely ‘back to business as usual’ in the slaughter of animals for monetary gain, in the collecting of animals as trophies and for zoos, and the belief that the earth and its resources are limitless and there for man’s taking, etc.
That slow-trickle of remorse by the characters made the ending less rewarding for me, though I am certain the author portrayed Elizabeth and Michael – and the others – true to the beliefs and attitudes of their times. And maybe that was the point: to simply show us the single-mindedness of man’s thoughts in his quest for riches.
I personally would love to have seen a historical note at the end of the book about the buffalo hunting that decimated the population from 25-30 million in the 1700s down to less than 100 by the 1880s. Perhaps the final version will include this information (I received an advance reader copy from the publisher through the Goodreads First Reads program – thank you!). Though the more I think about it, the more I believe the author wasn’t aiming to write eco-fiction. Perhaps he simply wanted to write an engaging story of the western plains, highlighting the struggles of man and his own ambitions. And in this, he succeeded abundantly well.
Bottom line: If you want to be immersed in a foreboding and simultaneously lush setting and hope to experience heart-stopping danger amid a gentle love story, this book is definitely worth the read. If you enjoy strong female characters and even the juxtaposition of “the hunt” with man’s tenderness toward horses and dogs, this might be the book for you. Coming in at only 293 pages, it’s a fast read. But be warned that some of the slaughter scenes may be difficult.
There is a Wikimedia photo from the 1870s of a pile of American bison skulls waiting to be ground for fertilizer -- to give a sense of the savage slaughter that took a food source away from Native Americans and nearly wiped out the species. Wow.
This is a raw, gritty story about the buffalo hunting of the late 1800s that drew the species to near extinction. Told in spare, exacting prose that still manages to paint incredible, vivid imagery of the dangers and depravations of life on the plains and of the times, this book touches the reader’s senses.
To me, this novel is a look back at the behaviors of man and the long-lasting consequences of greed and excess – even though the book did not highlight that theme in any overt manner. That is what stopped this from being a 5-star read for me, personally – the lack of moral stance taken, and perhaps I also wanted the characters to feel a much greater sense of remorse than they did. But the mentality of the characters was largely ‘back to business as usual’ in the slaughter of animals for monetary gain, in the collecting of animals as trophies and for zoos, and the belief that the earth and its resources are limitless and there for man’s taking, etc.
That slow-trickle of remorse by the characters made the ending less rewarding for me, though I am certain the author portrayed Elizabeth and Michael – and the others – true to the beliefs and attitudes of their times. And maybe that was the point: to simply show us the single-mindedness of man’s thoughts in his quest for riches.
I personally would love to have seen a historical note at the end of the book about the buffalo hunting that decimated the population from 25-30 million in the 1700s down to less than 100 by the 1880s. Perhaps the final version will include this information (I received an advance reader copy from the publisher through the Goodreads First Reads program – thank you!). Though the more I think about it, the more I believe the author wasn’t aiming to write eco-fiction. Perhaps he simply wanted to write an engaging story of the western plains, highlighting the struggles of man and his own ambitions. And in this, he succeeded abundantly well.
Bottom line: If you want to be immersed in a foreboding and simultaneously lush setting and hope to experience heart-stopping danger amid a gentle love story, this book is definitely worth the read. If you enjoy strong female characters and even the juxtaposition of “the hunt” with man’s tenderness toward horses and dogs, this might be the book for you. Coming in at only 293 pages, it’s a fast read. But be warned that some of the slaughter scenes may be difficult.
There is a Wikimedia photo from the 1870s of a pile of American bison skulls waiting to be ground for fertilizer -- to give a sense of the savage slaughter that took a food source away from Native Americans and nearly wiped out the species. Wow.
May 19, 2023
This was a superb adventure novel set following the Civil War when people longed to forge a new life on the Great American Frontier and the Great Plains were still congested with buffalo herds.
Michael has been on safari in Africa when he learns of his brother’s death back in America and that the plantation his brother David has labored on for years is in danger of being lost to creditors.
David has left his widow Elizabeth in bankruptcy.
It’s the West and it’s wild but settling slowly.
Michael has returned to attend to his brother’s debts and save the plantation only to discover that his brother’s creditors are a disreputable lot and murderous to boot, not above the double or triple cross.
So begins an exciting- if exhausting -read.
I knocked a star off because although well written it starts getting repetitive after an endless buffalo hunt -2/3rds of the way into the novel- but after seventy-five pages it regains momentum and has a stellar heart-in- throat climax.
One of the few Westerns I can recommend to both men and women and those who think they don’t care for the genre.
Michael has been on safari in Africa when he learns of his brother’s death back in America and that the plantation his brother David has labored on for years is in danger of being lost to creditors.
David has left his widow Elizabeth in bankruptcy.
It’s the West and it’s wild but settling slowly.
Michael has returned to attend to his brother’s debts and save the plantation only to discover that his brother’s creditors are a disreputable lot and murderous to boot, not above the double or triple cross.
So begins an exciting- if exhausting -read.
I knocked a star off because although well written it starts getting repetitive after an endless buffalo hunt -2/3rds of the way into the novel- but after seventy-five pages it regains momentum and has a stellar heart-in- throat climax.
One of the few Westerns I can recommend to both men and women and those who think they don’t care for the genre.
December 26, 2023
Within the last decade, I have read Olmstead's "Far Bright Star" and "Coal Black Horse", so when an Advanced Reading Copy of "Savage Country" arrived at my doorstep back in the summer of 2017, I was both happy and conflicted. Earlier that April, I had completed John Williams's "Butcher's Crossing" and after reading what this new Olmstead book was about, I put it on the bookshelf to be picked up at a later date. I read a western from time to time, but at that moment, I didn't think I'd enjoy another book concerning the same exact subject and I'm glad I did. Picking this up at the end of 2023, I found my interest in Olmstead's descriptive atmospheric writing was still piqued and finished it in about three days time.
The setting, the violence, the environment, the history. It's all there and Olmstead puts you in the middle of it like not many can.
The tragedy, the guilt, the elements unforeseen are mind-numbingly visceral and captivating.
This type of historical fiction has been written about before, but not always this substantial.
Easily a '4'.
The setting, the violence, the environment, the history. It's all there and Olmstead puts you in the middle of it like not many can.
The tragedy, the guilt, the elements unforeseen are mind-numbingly visceral and captivating.
This type of historical fiction has been written about before, but not always this substantial.
Easily a '4'.
April 27, 2023
This was an interesting one. 1870s, group goes on a huge buffalo hunt during this climactic period of the American West, natural disasters and all sorts befall them and it all starts to descend into chaos - it sounds like a recipe for something I would absolutely adore, but I didn't. Something felt off for me, whether it be the lack of connection to the characters or that missing commentary spark that I enjoy in books of this period. I like Olmstead's writing, he has a good voice and a knack for authentic dialogue, but overall the attachment to the characters affected my enjoyment.
June 21, 2020
Beautifully written.
I did enjoy this book because the description was so vivid that I felt transported to that era (1873). I saw myself surrounded by that wild life.
But it’s a brutal story.
Some scenes of violence can be hard to take. There was no space for kindness.
But the reason I’m not rating this book 5 stars is because I thought it was very dry and not a lot of character’s development. I did not feel sympathy for anyone, except sorry for the animals, especially the killing (aka closed extermination) of the buffalos.
This is not a book that I can easily recommend to a friend.
I did enjoy this book because the description was so vivid that I felt transported to that era (1873). I saw myself surrounded by that wild life.
But it’s a brutal story.
Some scenes of violence can be hard to take. There was no space for kindness.
But the reason I’m not rating this book 5 stars is because I thought it was very dry and not a lot of character’s development. I did not feel sympathy for anyone, except sorry for the animals, especially the killing (aka closed extermination) of the buffalos.
This is not a book that I can easily recommend to a friend.
May 3, 2020
The title of this powerful novel that follows a buffalo hunt in post-Civil War Kansas pretty much says it all: the American West was a land of brutal savagery. While the violence of the Indian wars lurks everywhere in the novel, Olmstead's true subject is the savagery of the white settlers to each other and to the environment. While the national myth portrays the progress of civilization from east to west, Olmstead suggests (following Cormac McCarthy, particularly in Blood Meridian) that the idea of progress merely masks humanity's fundamental heart of darkness--a heart of darkness that not only did not go away with the "civilizing" forces of settlement but indeed will never go away, as science, technology, and greed (for power and money) lead to ever more violent and efficient means of destruction.
Caught up in this savagery are the novel's protagonists, Elizabeth Coughlin and her brother-in-law Michael, who lead the expedition to massacre one of the last remaining buffalo herds. Elizabeth needs the money to help rescue herself and her ranch hands from the debt left by her husband, and Michael, who has hunted for profit across the world (including for zoos and the wealthy) goes along to help. Even Michael, who knows what he’s getting into, is eventually worn down and benumbed by the slaughter. But it’s Elizabeth who is most affected by the enterprise, at first developing into a skillful and firm leader (she’s a cross between Scarlett O’Hara and Ron Rash’s Serena), but she too eventually finds that the dark forces at work are too much for her, despite all the money she’s making. What happens next carries the novel toward its staggering conclusion.
As always with Olmstead, this novel is intense and often frightening--a gripping read, in other words. Readers who enjoy literature of the West will discover many nods to and echoes of other writers, most particularly Cormac McCarthy.
Thanks to NetGalley for providing me an ARC for an unbiased review.
Caught up in this savagery are the novel's protagonists, Elizabeth Coughlin and her brother-in-law Michael, who lead the expedition to massacre one of the last remaining buffalo herds. Elizabeth needs the money to help rescue herself and her ranch hands from the debt left by her husband, and Michael, who has hunted for profit across the world (including for zoos and the wealthy) goes along to help. Even Michael, who knows what he’s getting into, is eventually worn down and benumbed by the slaughter. But it’s Elizabeth who is most affected by the enterprise, at first developing into a skillful and firm leader (she’s a cross between Scarlett O’Hara and Ron Rash’s Serena), but she too eventually finds that the dark forces at work are too much for her, despite all the money she’s making. What happens next carries the novel toward its staggering conclusion.
As always with Olmstead, this novel is intense and often frightening--a gripping read, in other words. Readers who enjoy literature of the West will discover many nods to and echoes of other writers, most particularly Cormac McCarthy.
Thanks to NetGalley for providing me an ARC for an unbiased review.
February 13, 2023
"Soon he could see thousands of buffalo roaming the plains and he filled with a strange and powerful feeling, the passage of receding time. There were so many of them he felt diminished, infinitesimally small, insignificant. He lost his breath."
Newly widowed Elizabeth finds that her farm is heavily mortgaged to an unscrupulous banker in 1873 Kansas. Her brother-in-law, Michael, pays off the mortgage, but Elizabeth insists on paying him back. She decides to fulfill her late husband's dream of organizing a buffalo hunt. Headed up by Michael and Elizabeth, a motley crew travels south to the dangerous Indian Territory where the last large herd of buffalo graze. They also plan to kill other animals for their pelts and meat.
Although it provided work for the hunters, skinners, and butchers, greed took over and they almost wiped out the population of buffalo. The group faced dangers for an entire year - prairie fires, frigid weather, bandits, disease, and deaths. So much blood was spilled for financial security.
Robert Olmstead is an excellent writer who does not shy away from showing the destruction and hardships in the Old West. There are colorful characters, good friendships, loyal dogs, wonderful horses, and the beauty of the West to temper the hardship and violence. This is not a romantic cowboy story, but a fascinating look at reality in the Western frontier.
Newly widowed Elizabeth finds that her farm is heavily mortgaged to an unscrupulous banker in 1873 Kansas. Her brother-in-law, Michael, pays off the mortgage, but Elizabeth insists on paying him back. She decides to fulfill her late husband's dream of organizing a buffalo hunt. Headed up by Michael and Elizabeth, a motley crew travels south to the dangerous Indian Territory where the last large herd of buffalo graze. They also plan to kill other animals for their pelts and meat.
Although it provided work for the hunters, skinners, and butchers, greed took over and they almost wiped out the population of buffalo. The group faced dangers for an entire year - prairie fires, frigid weather, bandits, disease, and deaths. So much blood was spilled for financial security.
Robert Olmstead is an excellent writer who does not shy away from showing the destruction and hardships in the Old West. There are colorful characters, good friendships, loyal dogs, wonderful horses, and the beauty of the West to temper the hardship and violence. This is not a romantic cowboy story, but a fascinating look at reality in the Western frontier.
October 9, 2017
3 1/2 Stars
On the plus side, there’s plenty of gritty old American West in this book. In Kansas, 1873, David Coughin has died leaving his wife Elizabeth in desperate straits. What she thought was a profitable ranch is actually bankrupt and the evil Mr. Whitechurch is ready to grab it all. David’s brother Michael rides to the rescue giving Whitchurch all he can handle and more. But to maintain her holdings Elizabeth is determined to go through with her late husband’s plan for a massive buffalo hunt down south past the “dead line.” Michael tells her she’s crazy, but he agrees to go along. This makes for an interesting tale. Unfortunately, a large portion is taken with Michael killing buffalo…day after day, week after week, month after month, by the hundreds, by the thousands. Our “hero” then, is a major contributor to the near extinction one of America’s most noble of beasts. And neither Michael nor Elizabeth shows much concern, if any, to the immense damage their buffalo-slaughter causes.
On the plus side, there’s plenty of gritty old American West in this book. In Kansas, 1873, David Coughin has died leaving his wife Elizabeth in desperate straits. What she thought was a profitable ranch is actually bankrupt and the evil Mr. Whitechurch is ready to grab it all. David’s brother Michael rides to the rescue giving Whitchurch all he can handle and more. But to maintain her holdings Elizabeth is determined to go through with her late husband’s plan for a massive buffalo hunt down south past the “dead line.” Michael tells her she’s crazy, but he agrees to go along. This makes for an interesting tale. Unfortunately, a large portion is taken with Michael killing buffalo…day after day, week after week, month after month, by the hundreds, by the thousands. Our “hero” then, is a major contributor to the near extinction one of America’s most noble of beasts. And neither Michael nor Elizabeth shows much concern, if any, to the immense damage their buffalo-slaughter causes.
March 25, 2018
Great writing of a heartless time. I had recently watched “Godless” on Netflix, and the same feelings were evoked here. Incredibly lyrical writing for such a savage place and time.
February 3, 2018
Oh wow! A violent story of the last buffalo hunt in the late 1800s. Normally this sort of story would not appeal to me for its killing and animal cruelty. I'm that sort of person.
However, the characters of Michael and Elizabeth and Aubuchon stole my heart.
Michael is a selfless human who reads, loves his dogs and horse. He is a horse whisperer (my definition). This man would steal my heart if I were Elizabeth.
Elizabeth is a fiercely independent woman who will not marry again to be cared for by a man. She is determined to make it on her own. She is a war nurse and a buffalo hunter.
Aubuchon - a very minor character, is a religious man in his former life and now the cook for Elizabeth and the camp. He makes donuts.
If you are craving a terrific retelling of America's history along with a crazy good romantic story to boot, read this book. If you love descriptive settings and reading about America before it was fully civilized read this book. If you like stark, fluent writing, read this book. I can't really think of a good reason not to read this book.
P.S. when I say romance I do not mean that this falls in the romance genre. I mean that it is a story of human love.
However, the characters of Michael and Elizabeth and Aubuchon stole my heart.
Michael is a selfless human who reads, loves his dogs and horse. He is a horse whisperer (my definition). This man would steal my heart if I were Elizabeth.
Elizabeth is a fiercely independent woman who will not marry again to be cared for by a man. She is determined to make it on her own. She is a war nurse and a buffalo hunter.
Aubuchon - a very minor character, is a religious man in his former life and now the cook for Elizabeth and the camp. He makes donuts.
If you are craving a terrific retelling of America's history along with a crazy good romantic story to boot, read this book. If you love descriptive settings and reading about America before it was fully civilized read this book. If you like stark, fluent writing, read this book. I can't really think of a good reason not to read this book.
P.S. when I say romance I do not mean that this falls in the romance genre. I mean that it is a story of human love.
December 25, 2017
Received book from Goodreads with agreement to review; a great bargain considering what I had in store! Read much of this book while traveling across Argentina and Patagonia; our travels reminded me of the vast, beautiful Texas plains and this intriguing story as it unfolded. Set in the years immediately following the war between the States and greatly impacted by its results, the tale begins in Kansas and crosses down into Commanche and buffalo lands. Interesting in his descriptions of the gear and supplies required to support the exploit the buffalo to the pictures he paints of the flora, fauna, and wide ranges of land; Olmsted draws a fascinating account of the times and their brutalities. His characters are alive in their humanity--their goodness and their evil. Conversations of the times are peculiar and believable. I truly enjoyed this novel, its leading characters (especially identifying with Michael), and the melancholy expressions of loss that must have been a part of everyday life in those days. Thumbs up!
September 16, 2020
"El año era 1873, y por todas partes había muestras de auge y decadencia, de sueños rotos, estúpidas ambiciones, depredación, deshonra, codicia y crueldad".
— Robert Olmstead, 'Tierra salvaje'
Territorio de Kansas, 1873. Elizabeth Coughlin acaba de perder a su marido en un trágico accidente. Ajena a las deudas que éste había contraído, ahora se encuentra sin hogar, dinero, ni forma alguna de ganarse la vida. Su única salida, seguir los planes que su marido había trazado a la desesperada: organizar una peligrosa expedición para cazar bisontes más allá de la frontera de Kansas, en pleno territorio salvaje.
Elizabeth, acompañada de Michael, su taciturno y misterioso cuñado, y de un variopinto grupo de hombres, se embarcará entonces en una sangrienta hazaña, la última gran caza del gigante de las praderas americanas.
'Tierra salvaje' ofrece lo que promete en su título. La brutalidad del salvaje oeste en estado puro. No esperéis una tregua en este descarnado relato; la crueldad que se muestra entre sus páginas es tan pronunciada que os empujará hasta la misma náusea.
La bondad, la compasión y la ternura apenas aparecen en esta historia en la que bestias y hombres, confundidos unos con otros, luchan por su supervivencia.
He leído muchas novelas del oeste; algunas más amables que otras; pero lo que he encontrado en 'Tierra salvaje' me ha golpeado sobremanera. Quizá porque bajo la capa de suciedad y sangre he encontrado algo inesperado; una belleza melancólica y evocadora que, con el efecto de un bálsamo curativo, consigue borrar cada noche el recuerdo de las atrocidades vistas durante el día.
¡Qué bien escribe Robert Olmstead! No podéis imaginar la belleza salvaje que desprende cada página de este libro. Con una prosa austera, fría y concisa, consigue revivir imágenes, sonidos y olores de un mundo perdido: el Oeste antes de la "civilización", antes de la llegada del ferrocarril, el telégrafo, la maestra de escuela, el juez y la casa cercada...
Olmstead no escatima a la hora de mostrar la crudeza de la vida en una caravana que se adentra en territorio comanche, más allá de la temida 'línea muerta' que andaba paralela al cauce del Canadian River; los riesgos de convivir con animales salvajes; la fuerza destructora de la naturaleza, encarnada en incendios de las praderas, blizzards y destructivas inundaciones.
El campamento de Elizabeth tendrá que enfrentarse a múltiples peligros, mientras nosotros lectores contenemos el aliento. Mientras asistimos impotentes a la propia labor de destrucción que llevan a cabo los protagonistas de la historia.
"Durante cinco días Michael disparó a los bisontes y al quinto día conseguía uno por disparo. Disparó 178 veces y mató a 178."
Una matanza repetida día tras día. Un negocio lucrativo, que sacará a los expedicionarios de la ruina, pero a cambio de un alto precio.
He adorado ser parte de esta expedición y me he encariñado de muchos de sus integrantes, supervivientes de un mundo cruel: del dulce Charlie; de Aubuchon, el infatigable cocinero francés; de los cuatro hermanos con nombres de evangelistas, incluso del perro rojo sin nombre que acompaña fielmente a Michael.
Solo hubiese deseado que la historia tuviese otro buen puñado de páginas; para hacerla durar, para evitar llegar a la terrible escena que marca el punto final...
En un pequeño ensayo que cierra la edición, Robert Olmstead habla de los hombres y sobre todo de las mujeres de su familia que le inspiraron a la hora de escribir su novela. Mujeres de una aparente fragilidad externa, pero con un caracter duro como la roca. Ellas también fueron el Oeste; ellas también fueron parte esencial de su historia.
— Robert Olmstead, 'Tierra salvaje'
Territorio de Kansas, 1873. Elizabeth Coughlin acaba de perder a su marido en un trágico accidente. Ajena a las deudas que éste había contraído, ahora se encuentra sin hogar, dinero, ni forma alguna de ganarse la vida. Su única salida, seguir los planes que su marido había trazado a la desesperada: organizar una peligrosa expedición para cazar bisontes más allá de la frontera de Kansas, en pleno territorio salvaje.
Elizabeth, acompañada de Michael, su taciturno y misterioso cuñado, y de un variopinto grupo de hombres, se embarcará entonces en una sangrienta hazaña, la última gran caza del gigante de las praderas americanas.
'Tierra salvaje' ofrece lo que promete en su título. La brutalidad del salvaje oeste en estado puro. No esperéis una tregua en este descarnado relato; la crueldad que se muestra entre sus páginas es tan pronunciada que os empujará hasta la misma náusea.
La bondad, la compasión y la ternura apenas aparecen en esta historia en la que bestias y hombres, confundidos unos con otros, luchan por su supervivencia.
He leído muchas novelas del oeste; algunas más amables que otras; pero lo que he encontrado en 'Tierra salvaje' me ha golpeado sobremanera. Quizá porque bajo la capa de suciedad y sangre he encontrado algo inesperado; una belleza melancólica y evocadora que, con el efecto de un bálsamo curativo, consigue borrar cada noche el recuerdo de las atrocidades vistas durante el día.
¡Qué bien escribe Robert Olmstead! No podéis imaginar la belleza salvaje que desprende cada página de este libro. Con una prosa austera, fría y concisa, consigue revivir imágenes, sonidos y olores de un mundo perdido: el Oeste antes de la "civilización", antes de la llegada del ferrocarril, el telégrafo, la maestra de escuela, el juez y la casa cercada...
Olmstead no escatima a la hora de mostrar la crudeza de la vida en una caravana que se adentra en territorio comanche, más allá de la temida 'línea muerta' que andaba paralela al cauce del Canadian River; los riesgos de convivir con animales salvajes; la fuerza destructora de la naturaleza, encarnada en incendios de las praderas, blizzards y destructivas inundaciones.
El campamento de Elizabeth tendrá que enfrentarse a múltiples peligros, mientras nosotros lectores contenemos el aliento. Mientras asistimos impotentes a la propia labor de destrucción que llevan a cabo los protagonistas de la historia.
"Durante cinco días Michael disparó a los bisontes y al quinto día conseguía uno por disparo. Disparó 178 veces y mató a 178."
Una matanza repetida día tras día. Un negocio lucrativo, que sacará a los expedicionarios de la ruina, pero a cambio de un alto precio.
He adorado ser parte de esta expedición y me he encariñado de muchos de sus integrantes, supervivientes de un mundo cruel: del dulce Charlie; de Aubuchon, el infatigable cocinero francés; de los cuatro hermanos con nombres de evangelistas, incluso del perro rojo sin nombre que acompaña fielmente a Michael.
Solo hubiese deseado que la historia tuviese otro buen puñado de páginas; para hacerla durar, para evitar llegar a la terrible escena que marca el punto final...
En un pequeño ensayo que cierra la edición, Robert Olmstead habla de los hombres y sobre todo de las mujeres de su familia que le inspiraron a la hora de escribir su novela. Mujeres de una aparente fragilidad externa, pero con un caracter duro como la roca. Ellas también fueron el Oeste; ellas también fueron parte esencial de su historia.
March 6, 2018
Ernest Hemingway changed the way novelists and short story writers write, and under his influence came Raymond Carver, then Cormac McCarthy, each bequeathing what Hemingway had begat to succeeding generations, the style changing only slightly to fit the perspiration and cigarette smoke of each writer. But slowly, with each handoff, something was slowly lost.
Olmstead’s title here says all that’s relevant in that regard, but indulge me in a few details. Michael Coughlin has lost his family and wandered off the literary reservation into existential territory. He meets Elizabeth, his brother’s widowed wife, whom the brother has left destitute. There’s a strain of Americana in which it’s sought to make joy from sorrow, wealth from poverty, and Michael and Elizabeth head into the untapped American prairie hopeful of gaining such new life from buffalo hunting. Olmstead offers but a single sentence of awareness concerning the part the couple play in all but sending the American buffalo into extinction, the Native American plains culture along with it.
There’s little story here. As the pages turn, Olmstead follows suit with the likes of Charles Frazier and his Cold Mountain in allowing the couple and their retinue to experience the prairie expanse, the buffalo butchering, Indian brutality, racism, murder, extreme weather, and the most brutal of robberies. At book’s end, Michael and Elizabeth gain a workable attachment to one another, but lose all else.
The project of Savage Country is to portray the plains, hence Earth, as indifferent to all life. So indifferent in fact as to not just indulge but encourage life as joyless loss. Of soul. Of material wealth. Of humanity’s connections to one another.
But to the style: Olmstead’s prose is elegant on the surface, but where Hemingway wrote in this manner allowing his characters to breathe in a spectrum of emotions, aspirations, and world views, those of Olmstead are monochromatic. He seems so against allowing them any depth by word and action that occasionally he has to allow his narrator to mete out humanity to his characters in stage whispers.
This book has been lauded in reviews and that’s understandable as long as one wishes to read cynically, without hope of being inspired to anything hopeful, or to refrain from answers to hard questions put to them. Sadly that apparently comprises a significant portion of the American readership.
Olmstead’s title here says all that’s relevant in that regard, but indulge me in a few details. Michael Coughlin has lost his family and wandered off the literary reservation into existential territory. He meets Elizabeth, his brother’s widowed wife, whom the brother has left destitute. There’s a strain of Americana in which it’s sought to make joy from sorrow, wealth from poverty, and Michael and Elizabeth head into the untapped American prairie hopeful of gaining such new life from buffalo hunting. Olmstead offers but a single sentence of awareness concerning the part the couple play in all but sending the American buffalo into extinction, the Native American plains culture along with it.
There’s little story here. As the pages turn, Olmstead follows suit with the likes of Charles Frazier and his Cold Mountain in allowing the couple and their retinue to experience the prairie expanse, the buffalo butchering, Indian brutality, racism, murder, extreme weather, and the most brutal of robberies. At book’s end, Michael and Elizabeth gain a workable attachment to one another, but lose all else.
The project of Savage Country is to portray the plains, hence Earth, as indifferent to all life. So indifferent in fact as to not just indulge but encourage life as joyless loss. Of soul. Of material wealth. Of humanity’s connections to one another.
But to the style: Olmstead’s prose is elegant on the surface, but where Hemingway wrote in this manner allowing his characters to breathe in a spectrum of emotions, aspirations, and world views, those of Olmstead are monochromatic. He seems so against allowing them any depth by word and action that occasionally he has to allow his narrator to mete out humanity to his characters in stage whispers.
This book has been lauded in reviews and that’s understandable as long as one wishes to read cynically, without hope of being inspired to anything hopeful, or to refrain from answers to hard questions put to them. Sadly that apparently comprises a significant portion of the American readership.
October 7, 2017
Olmstead has done it again; one of my favorite authors. As usual, uncompromisingly direct and seemingly simple writing. Not a word that is not necessary and, as befits the title, this is one savage story with many beautiful and thoughtful moments.
This is a tale of a Civil War veteran who joins his brother's widow on a hugely dangerous buffalo hunt to settle his brother's debt and save her land. They have limited time to accomplish this, while the Comanche are in their winter quarters, and must deal with all of the wild west's dangers, including rattlesnakes, rabies, wildfire, blizzards and human treachery.
A great read.
This is a tale of a Civil War veteran who joins his brother's widow on a hugely dangerous buffalo hunt to settle his brother's debt and save her land. They have limited time to accomplish this, while the Comanche are in their winter quarters, and must deal with all of the wild west's dangers, including rattlesnakes, rabies, wildfire, blizzards and human treachery.
A great read.
March 1, 2023
https://kansasbooks.blogspot.com/2023...
“Qué pais tan rico y fecundo, cómo olía a tierra y a estiércol, a descomposición y retorno, cálido lleno de vapor y hediondo; los miles y miles de años de pasto y abono y nacimiento y muerte en aquellas llanuras generativas. La tierra, el agua, el mismo aire generando vida, sosteniendo la vida y volviendo a la tierra, como solía ser en la antigüedad.”
Tierra Salvaje es una novela histórica o del oeste ubicada en la época en la que este oeste americano era todavía un lugar medio salvaje pero de enorme belleza donde los recursos naturales abundaban, aunque la intrusión del hombre blanco había comenzado ya a hacer estragos entre los nativos indios y los bisontes. El escenario en el que comienza esta novela es la Kansas de 1873 y el argumento se podría decir que es uno de los tópicos más usados en el género del oeste: una mujer sola, en una época en la que poco que menos se la podía considerar el reposo del vaquero, se tiene que enfrentar al derrumbe de su seguro mundo. Elizabeth Coughlin se queda viuda justo cuando su marido está endeudado hasta las cejas y están a punto de perder el rancho. Su enigmático cuñado, Michael, que hasta ahora había vagado perdido por el mundo, el hermano menor de su marido, acude en su ayuda, consigue salvar la deuda aunque esto no es suficiente para que ella pueda volver a reconstruir y mantener su nivel de vida anterior, así que se le ocurre una misión peligrosa y temeraria, sobre todo viniendo de una mujer: cruzar más allá de la llamada "línea muerta" que demarca el territorio indio de su estado natal de Kansas aprovechando que los comanches están aposentados en sus cuarteles de invierno, y emprender la cacería de los bisontes, que era un plan que había tenido su marido antes de morir. Será un tiempo fugaz ya que deberán completar esta misión antes de que los indios vuelvan a su territorio.
“-No es usted la mujer que yo pensaba.
- Tal vez no, -dijo ella. Tal vez antes no era nada y ahora soy algo.”
A partir de aquí Robert Olmstead construye una historia solvente y entretenida sazonada de momentos tanto épicos como más intimos trazando el perfil de los muchos personajes que emprenden esta expedición acompañando a Elizabeth y a Michael. Una caravana cuyo objetivo es el de la supervivencia económica en una época en la que había que abrir nuevos caminos y sobrevivir a cualquier costa. Esta cacería de bisontes es un hecho histórico que los llevó al borde la extinción así que cuando llegado el momento, la narración se detiene precisamente en esta matanza, se vuelve especialmente gráfica sin ahorrar detalles al respecto como cuando cuenta cómo Michael tenía que abatir todos los días en torno a 200 bisontes para ser a continuación, desollados, descuartizados y preparados para el negocio. A nuestros ojos de hoy en día nos puede parecer especialmente duro, pero Robert Olmstead intenta proporcionar la perspectiva de la época en la que lo primordial era buscar un medio de subsistencia. Sin embargo y así y todo, eché de menos un poco más de profundidad por parte de Olmstead a la hora de abordar un tema tan fundamental en la historia del oeste americano, que fue la del exterminio del bisonte americano.
“Al sexto día, desde la loma baja contempló su reino de muerte. Era un lugar barrido por el viento solitario. Los cuervos, los lobos, los coyotes, los desolladores, los carniceros.. todos espeaban como paralizados y tenían que recobrarse del sonido de los rifles. El resto de la manada, pastando y rumiando, se dirigía al oeste, las sombras de las nubes adelantándose lentamente.”
Es cierto que Michael Coughlin, que es un personaje atormentado, un tópico, y hay momentos en los que aparece totalmente hundido tras contribuir a este exterminio, también es cierto que es un personaje que viene de un pasado de pérdidas y de vagabundeo por el mundo y Olmstead pasa de puntillas por el hecho de que sus dos personajes protagonistas, tanto Michael como Elizabeth, cuestionen en ningún momento este genocidio. Es coherente pensar que por la época que vivieron, no les tocaba preocuparse por exterminar, y sí por sobrevivir, pero hasta cierto punto, ya digo que Olmstead casi en ningún momento profundiza en este exterminio.
"¿Cómo pueden ser los días tan breves y aún así interminables, inmensos, monótonos al mismo tiempo? ¿Cómo voy a poder otra vez liderar a hombres buenos? No tengo ningún sueño de volver."
En "Tierra Salvaje" parece a veces una novela coral por la cantidad de personajes que personifican algunas de las esferas sociales, venidas a menos en una época en la que el viejo oeste ya no era el mismo: algunos personajes ex combatientes de guerra, pistoleros, vagabundos, algún chico huérfano acogido por la caravana de Elizabeth, esclavos huidos, todo un ecosistema de personajes que durante un momento dado toman refugio en esta cacería de bisontes en un intento por encontrar su lugar en un mundo caótico. La violencia que surge casi más entre ellos que la que proviene de la naturaleza más salvaje es otro punto que toca Olmstead aunque cuando surge alguna escena violenta, Olmstead no se detiene demasiado y normalmente pasa de puntillas como si por ser una novela del oeste tuviera que pasar por ciertos momentos, pero no ahonda. Bien escrita, y transparente y sin embargo, terminé la novela con la sensación de que el autor no profundiza en ningún momento en el cliché del vaquero atormentado y de pocas palabras, y la viuda a la larga necesitada de protección, que realmente no es lo que parecía que nos estaba vendiendo en un principio con este personaje femenino. Me ha dejado un sabor agridulce quizás por esta plantilla de personajes por las que pasó superficialmente como si fueran tópicos, y sin embargo, no ahondó lo suficientemente como para que tuvieran un alma.
"A estas alturas, Michael había empezado a soñar con bisontes. Al principio no había ningún bisonte y todo estaba envuelto en la oscuridad, pero luego soplaba un viento rugiente, extraño y vacío, y una roca se partía y los bisontes salían de la boca de esa cueva. Venían entre bramidos y resoplidos, pisoteando y chapoteando en dirección a los extensos pastos ondulados. Había miles y miles."
“Qué pais tan rico y fecundo, cómo olía a tierra y a estiércol, a descomposición y retorno, cálido lleno de vapor y hediondo; los miles y miles de años de pasto y abono y nacimiento y muerte en aquellas llanuras generativas. La tierra, el agua, el mismo aire generando vida, sosteniendo la vida y volviendo a la tierra, como solía ser en la antigüedad.”
Tierra Salvaje es una novela histórica o del oeste ubicada en la época en la que este oeste americano era todavía un lugar medio salvaje pero de enorme belleza donde los recursos naturales abundaban, aunque la intrusión del hombre blanco había comenzado ya a hacer estragos entre los nativos indios y los bisontes. El escenario en el que comienza esta novela es la Kansas de 1873 y el argumento se podría decir que es uno de los tópicos más usados en el género del oeste: una mujer sola, en una época en la que poco que menos se la podía considerar el reposo del vaquero, se tiene que enfrentar al derrumbe de su seguro mundo. Elizabeth Coughlin se queda viuda justo cuando su marido está endeudado hasta las cejas y están a punto de perder el rancho. Su enigmático cuñado, Michael, que hasta ahora había vagado perdido por el mundo, el hermano menor de su marido, acude en su ayuda, consigue salvar la deuda aunque esto no es suficiente para que ella pueda volver a reconstruir y mantener su nivel de vida anterior, así que se le ocurre una misión peligrosa y temeraria, sobre todo viniendo de una mujer: cruzar más allá de la llamada "línea muerta" que demarca el territorio indio de su estado natal de Kansas aprovechando que los comanches están aposentados en sus cuarteles de invierno, y emprender la cacería de los bisontes, que era un plan que había tenido su marido antes de morir. Será un tiempo fugaz ya que deberán completar esta misión antes de que los indios vuelvan a su territorio.
“-No es usted la mujer que yo pensaba.
- Tal vez no, -dijo ella. Tal vez antes no era nada y ahora soy algo.”
A partir de aquí Robert Olmstead construye una historia solvente y entretenida sazonada de momentos tanto épicos como más intimos trazando el perfil de los muchos personajes que emprenden esta expedición acompañando a Elizabeth y a Michael. Una caravana cuyo objetivo es el de la supervivencia económica en una época en la que había que abrir nuevos caminos y sobrevivir a cualquier costa. Esta cacería de bisontes es un hecho histórico que los llevó al borde la extinción así que cuando llegado el momento, la narración se detiene precisamente en esta matanza, se vuelve especialmente gráfica sin ahorrar detalles al respecto como cuando cuenta cómo Michael tenía que abatir todos los días en torno a 200 bisontes para ser a continuación, desollados, descuartizados y preparados para el negocio. A nuestros ojos de hoy en día nos puede parecer especialmente duro, pero Robert Olmstead intenta proporcionar la perspectiva de la época en la que lo primordial era buscar un medio de subsistencia. Sin embargo y así y todo, eché de menos un poco más de profundidad por parte de Olmstead a la hora de abordar un tema tan fundamental en la historia del oeste americano, que fue la del exterminio del bisonte americano.
“Al sexto día, desde la loma baja contempló su reino de muerte. Era un lugar barrido por el viento solitario. Los cuervos, los lobos, los coyotes, los desolladores, los carniceros.. todos espeaban como paralizados y tenían que recobrarse del sonido de los rifles. El resto de la manada, pastando y rumiando, se dirigía al oeste, las sombras de las nubes adelantándose lentamente.”
Es cierto que Michael Coughlin, que es un personaje atormentado, un tópico, y hay momentos en los que aparece totalmente hundido tras contribuir a este exterminio, también es cierto que es un personaje que viene de un pasado de pérdidas y de vagabundeo por el mundo y Olmstead pasa de puntillas por el hecho de que sus dos personajes protagonistas, tanto Michael como Elizabeth, cuestionen en ningún momento este genocidio. Es coherente pensar que por la época que vivieron, no les tocaba preocuparse por exterminar, y sí por sobrevivir, pero hasta cierto punto, ya digo que Olmstead casi en ningún momento profundiza en este exterminio.
"¿Cómo pueden ser los días tan breves y aún así interminables, inmensos, monótonos al mismo tiempo? ¿Cómo voy a poder otra vez liderar a hombres buenos? No tengo ningún sueño de volver."
En "Tierra Salvaje" parece a veces una novela coral por la cantidad de personajes que personifican algunas de las esferas sociales, venidas a menos en una época en la que el viejo oeste ya no era el mismo: algunos personajes ex combatientes de guerra, pistoleros, vagabundos, algún chico huérfano acogido por la caravana de Elizabeth, esclavos huidos, todo un ecosistema de personajes que durante un momento dado toman refugio en esta cacería de bisontes en un intento por encontrar su lugar en un mundo caótico. La violencia que surge casi más entre ellos que la que proviene de la naturaleza más salvaje es otro punto que toca Olmstead aunque cuando surge alguna escena violenta, Olmstead no se detiene demasiado y normalmente pasa de puntillas como si por ser una novela del oeste tuviera que pasar por ciertos momentos, pero no ahonda. Bien escrita, y transparente y sin embargo, terminé la novela con la sensación de que el autor no profundiza en ningún momento en el cliché del vaquero atormentado y de pocas palabras, y la viuda a la larga necesitada de protección, que realmente no es lo que parecía que nos estaba vendiendo en un principio con este personaje femenino. Me ha dejado un sabor agridulce quizás por esta plantilla de personajes por las que pasó superficialmente como si fueran tópicos, y sin embargo, no ahondó lo suficientemente como para que tuvieran un alma.
"A estas alturas, Michael había empezado a soñar con bisontes. Al principio no había ningún bisonte y todo estaba envuelto en la oscuridad, pero luego soplaba un viento rugiente, extraño y vacío, y una roca se partía y los bisontes salían de la boca de esa cueva. Venían entre bramidos y resoplidos, pisoteando y chapoteando en dirección a los extensos pastos ondulados. Había miles y miles."
December 19, 2017
I clicked buy/read now after two sample pages of Savage Country. I just finished Pachinko, with a longing for descriptive word pictures, and Olmstead more than delivered in a book that won me over in spite of itself.
This was a good novel with occasional flashes of brilliance and a significant amount of blood and violence.
First page begins in a barely settled Kansas town...”the smell of raw sewage and creosote, the smell of lye and kerosene oil...” and in the second paragraph, “The year was 1873 and all around was the evidence of boom and bust, shattered dreams, foolish ambition, depredation, shame, greed, and cruelty.” This is obviously not going to be little house on the prairie reading.
Olmstead uses the word abattoir — so be warned, this is not a book for vegetarians, PETA supporters, or the squeamish. The last of the buffalo roamed, unknowingly, directly into the sights of hunters, and those buffalo were systematically shot and harvested by teams of butchers, skinners, and a motley crew of misfits hired to do the bloody work.
I am Kansas born, and lived there five times. I remember a school field trip to see a small “herd” of buffalo. This book made me revisit and revise my ‘book learning’ on the true and brutal history of how exactly it was that the west was “won.” I could probably read for years about all that was lost.
The prose seemed very affected and flat, to seem in the style of the era? But I found the style distracting, and don’t mean to be contradictory to say that the well-written passages then frustrated me even more.
I got the vivid descriptions I longed for in this book (along with blood!) — to the point of feeling an existential homesickness for the plains of my formative years. I wish he’d revised the manuscript a few times to keep the writing at a consistent level.
The busy and dramatic plot covered a lot of territory (Kansas joke); the great passages helped me overlook my problem with the female character‘s rapid transformation from trembling widow to strong frontier business woman with heart (yep).
The main characters were somehow the weakest, and the cast of secondary western archetypes were far more vivid and interesting.
Abattoir. I can emphasize that word without hitting the spoiler button. I’ve read a string of graphic and brutal novels set in the West over the past year (and Vietnam books...hey, I’m just a glutton for punishment). How deeply sad to even imagine a time when buffalo actually roamed as far as the eye could see. Might be time for something lighter. Or not.
This was a good novel with occasional flashes of brilliance and a significant amount of blood and violence.
First page begins in a barely settled Kansas town...”the smell of raw sewage and creosote, the smell of lye and kerosene oil...” and in the second paragraph, “The year was 1873 and all around was the evidence of boom and bust, shattered dreams, foolish ambition, depredation, shame, greed, and cruelty.” This is obviously not going to be little house on the prairie reading.
Olmstead uses the word abattoir — so be warned, this is not a book for vegetarians, PETA supporters, or the squeamish. The last of the buffalo roamed, unknowingly, directly into the sights of hunters, and those buffalo were systematically shot and harvested by teams of butchers, skinners, and a motley crew of misfits hired to do the bloody work.
I am Kansas born, and lived there five times. I remember a school field trip to see a small “herd” of buffalo. This book made me revisit and revise my ‘book learning’ on the true and brutal history of how exactly it was that the west was “won.” I could probably read for years about all that was lost.
The prose seemed very affected and flat, to seem in the style of the era? But I found the style distracting, and don’t mean to be contradictory to say that the well-written passages then frustrated me even more.
I got the vivid descriptions I longed for in this book (along with blood!) — to the point of feeling an existential homesickness for the plains of my formative years. I wish he’d revised the manuscript a few times to keep the writing at a consistent level.
The busy and dramatic plot covered a lot of territory (Kansas joke); the great passages helped me overlook my problem with the female character‘s rapid transformation from trembling widow to strong frontier business woman with heart (yep).
The main characters were somehow the weakest, and the cast of secondary western archetypes were far more vivid and interesting.
Abattoir. I can emphasize that word without hitting the spoiler button. I’ve read a string of graphic and brutal novels set in the West over the past year (and Vietnam books...hey, I’m just a glutton for punishment). How deeply sad to even imagine a time when buffalo actually roamed as far as the eye could see. Might be time for something lighter. Or not.
October 2, 2017
And so we have people seeking wealth within the savagery and beauty of the wilderness in this terrible beauty of prose we visit the clash between peoples and cattle, for foods, skins, monies, and ways. A solider, Michael, a reverend doctor and a business woman Elizabeth of whom is seeking enterprise in turning buffalo into money, along with a band of hired men, to take that others also want claim over.
Killing again in history upon the land, a cycle that has no ends.
Great prose within these pages and something I wished has more length, more pages.
Killing again in history upon the land, a cycle that has no ends.
Great prose within these pages and something I wished has more length, more pages.
October 9, 2017
Butcher's Crossing by John Williams, Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, Warlock by Oakley Hall, and now Savage Country by Robert Olmstead are the must read books you need to read about the American West. Let others here give summary reviews of this wonderful book, I'll simply say this is one magnificent read.
October 23, 2017
With the sudden death of her husband, Elisabeth Couglin not only becomes a young widow but an impoverished one. In 1873, Kansas, she learns that David’s investments were but idealized dreams for an elusive future. While Elizabeth ponders what she will do, David’s brother Michael arrives. He is the opposite of David, action not thought. His background is one of travel and adventure. But now he is seeking to relieve Elizabeth’s debts. But when he pays off the person who holds her debt, both Michael and Elizabeth know that won’t be enough to keep them from returning for more.
Using David’s plan as their guide, they rally other poor townsfolk, and set off to make their fortune in the great buffalo hunts now sweeping the plains south of Kansas. This is Comanche territory, a brutal land of wild weather, poor water and sparse grazing, The large group must contend with each others’ temperaments, learn trust, and recognize what skills each have to survive.
Both Elizabeth and Michael are changed personally and profoundly by the experience. Olmstead conveys the sentiment of those times, when the West was seen as a boundless land offering riches to those willing to risk all. But at what cost? Recommended.
Using David’s plan as their guide, they rally other poor townsfolk, and set off to make their fortune in the great buffalo hunts now sweeping the plains south of Kansas. This is Comanche territory, a brutal land of wild weather, poor water and sparse grazing, The large group must contend with each others’ temperaments, learn trust, and recognize what skills each have to survive.
Both Elizabeth and Michael are changed personally and profoundly by the experience. Olmstead conveys the sentiment of those times, when the West was seen as a boundless land offering riches to those willing to risk all. But at what cost? Recommended.
Read
October 9, 2017It is the late 1800’s and the buffalo roam in the millions across the west. Recently widowed Elizabeth Coughlin organizes a buffalo hunt to save her ranch from Whitechurch, a corrupt banker. Agreeing to help after attempts to dissuade Elizabeth is her enigmatic brother-in-law Michael - a hunter by trade who thinks the hunt a fool hardy undertaking. Along with all of the necessary supplies, the local irksome pastor, and hardened, desperate men of questionable character they ruthlessly track down and kill countless hundreds of buffalo, but a savage country does not discern man or beast, who will be the next to fall. Robert Olmstead author of the equally powerful stories Coal Black Horse and Far Bright Star casts a gimlet eye on a sad period in American history. Great reading for Southwest history buffs, readers of Philip Meyers’ The Son, and Christopher Knowlton’s Cattle Kingdom. -- Amy O.
December 27, 2017
I received this book in a Goodreads giveaway in exchange for an honest review. I devoured this novel in one day. It is not for the faint of heart. It is a brutal depiction of life on the open plains of Kansas in 1873. Hardship, buffalo slaughters, savage attacks by Comanche Indians, desperate post civil war soldiers trying to find their way, newly released slaves attempting to be integrated into any social group and treated equal to whites, illness, and devastating storms rampage across the chapters of this novel. There is page after page of raw violence and Olmstead eloquently takes the reader through history and a snapshot in time of the lives of Elizabeth Coughlin, her deceased husband David, and his brother Michael. Well done!
March 17, 2018
When I finished reading "Savage Country," I wept. Because I was sad it was over and because I was very relieved certain characters survived.
Robert Olmstead's books tackle topics that terrify me--ie. war, the buffalo hunt. I read his books, though, because I have learned to trust him with any subject he takes on. Unfailingly, his writing is gorgeous, his stories, fantastic.
In addition to "Savage Country," I've also read "Coal Black Horse," and "Stay Here with Me." They are all beautiful stories. I plan to read everything Olmstead has written, everything he will write.
Robert Olmstead's books tackle topics that terrify me--ie. war, the buffalo hunt. I read his books, though, because I have learned to trust him with any subject he takes on. Unfailingly, his writing is gorgeous, his stories, fantastic.
In addition to "Savage Country," I've also read "Coal Black Horse," and "Stay Here with Me." They are all beautiful stories. I plan to read everything Olmstead has written, everything he will write.
December 6, 2017
Olmstead continues to be one of the finest writers out there. Beautiful language, incredible imagery. This is a book that gets better with each reading (twice already for me). I consider Olmstead to be more accessible than Cormac McCarthy but just as engaging.
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