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Soft Water
Book
- GenresFiction
226 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1988
2 people are currently reading
90 people want to read
About the author
Robert Olmstead
25 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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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
January 7, 2008
Probably my favorite book. Definitely my favorite Olmstead, and he's probably my favorite writer so you do the math. Few writers have captured New England in all its schizophrenic glory as well as Olmstead. This is his brashest, and yet in some ways his most delicate book. Everything his future books and past short stories cover is here but in it's rawest form. If you think New England is John Irving and Dennis Lehane then you should read some Olmstead. This is the New England you find when you leave Boston and the safety of a college campus. Real people, from chain saw wielding swamp yankees to idealistic hippies and everything in between.
Tragically out of print and definitely worth picking up for next to nothing on Amazon.
Tragically out of print and definitely worth picking up for next to nothing on Amazon.
March 7, 2016
Although I doubt it will happen, I wouldn't be surprised if this book was made into a film by The Coen Brothers one day. Rich with witty, deadpan dialogue, oddball characters, and violence, "Soft Water" is a thoughtful novel.
January 17, 2012
Sometimes I like to read long forgotten books in the hope of discovering a hidden gem, especially if they have that delightfully retro white Vintage Contemporaries cover. There is no doubt Robert Olmstead is an extremely talented writer but sometimes that just isn’t enough. It was enough to make me read this in two sittings hanging off every word but that was only to find that nothing much happens and then feel rather cheated. It’s a small rural town in New England and the pace is certainly country style. There are just various quirky characters that interact for most of it. You have to wait 200 pages for some real complications and they are resolved way too quickly and cleanly in the last 30 or so. I’m sure Olmstead’s work has improved from this early effort but it’s not high up on my to-read list to find out any time soon.
Read
July 9, 2024underrated
August 5, 2016
Very masculine read, a la Hemingway, but main character Asel likes his woman Phoebe, and treats her nicely. He hides his brutally violent background from her, and she keeps her own secrets also (which was confusing to me, seemed kind of pointless). Soft Water read like watching a movie, a macho thriller, with hunting and survivalism, and wilderness, murder and bromance. The writing is lovely though. At first I thought allusions to the title quite subtle and deft: the softness of the lake water created by Phoebe's undulating floor-length hair, then reference to lead in the water and its effect on hair. But then there were three or four more references and I felt like I was being hit on the head with it, so I removed a star.
October 25, 2023
Solid but a little dark for me. The middle was strong and the ending had me guessing & nervous but this Vintage Contemporary will move from my permanent collection to the donation pile.
“You know, sometimes I try to figure it all out, and I can’t.”
“It’s like that,” she says. “Sometimes you want to run a needle and thread through, then pull it all together, like smocking, but it doesn’t work that way.”
“I think it’s more like an onion. Skin upon skin. Layer upon layer. onions are sweet when you boil them.” P.20
“He would have trusted Phoebe the same way, if she were a man, but she wasn’t. Trust and love were two different things.” P.71
“He had old feelings of being alone. They reared up inside him, making him feel gray and hollow. He sat down at the table and Cutler dealt him in. Axel started to shut down little pieces of himself. Others he set aside in his head, not knowing whether to cancel them out, or just temporarily tie them off.” P.75
“Today, if history doesn’t fit, some sanitized, myopic view, it is rewritten. The only good history is the history that makes America great. If it doesn’t do that, it was either a mistake or it didn’t happen.” P.84
“He always makes room in her stories for himself. Room where he can stand and be a part. If she talks about something she’s done with two of her friends, he always adds room for another in his mind so he can be there too. Sometimes he brings Lion and Sal along with him.” P.84
“The ride, takes on the feel of walking in a dream, a tonnage of sleep, riding through the night, on the back of a blind whale out for a stroll.” P.119
“He stands between the woman who took her life in the tree, and the house. He shares with a woman he realizes he doesn’t know.
He turns and, in one smooth motion, levels, aims and fires, sending a tight pattern of copperplated shot into the trunk of the oak, and then two more right after it.” P.135
“They drag their shacks out onto the millpond that still backs up enough power to turn the wheels that run the looms, but now the looms are gone, and the water goes about the business of warehousing fish and looking pristine.” P.142
“Florida is a state asshole has come to hate. It seems to be a place where children aren’t safe. Their spirited away from their parents never to be seen again. It seems to be a place where Peter Pan and the Pied Piper work overtime, leading children to cast off from the windowsill, barnstorm the chimney, and then disappear into the night. Sometimes the parents steal their own children.” P.153
“The road, runs out under the tires, and the limbs of the trees lace, the night sky high overhead. Trees, water, and towns run by silently as he makes his passage. He thinks of the people inside the houses, caught in private seas of dream, unaware of him driving past their doors with danger, following somewhere behind.” P.191
“Asel doesn’t reply. He knows that the man wants to talk. He learned long ago that people have a need to talk for the sake of talking, and that the sound they make is the only thing they have. When you become a part of it, they own you. They can then lay down the rules, and at their gentle walk away, thinking you’re a fool.” P.208
“I wouldn’t change this in any way,” she says, her voice, soft, and distant. “The darkness is all around, and it’s fine. I’ve come to like the dark.”
“It was in the north, Asel tell her. “It will be different now. I know it will.”
“No, it won’t,” she says, “but we’ll pretend it is. We’ll pretend it never happened.” P.226
“You know, sometimes I try to figure it all out, and I can’t.”
“It’s like that,” she says. “Sometimes you want to run a needle and thread through, then pull it all together, like smocking, but it doesn’t work that way.”
“I think it’s more like an onion. Skin upon skin. Layer upon layer. onions are sweet when you boil them.” P.20
“He would have trusted Phoebe the same way, if she were a man, but she wasn’t. Trust and love were two different things.” P.71
“He had old feelings of being alone. They reared up inside him, making him feel gray and hollow. He sat down at the table and Cutler dealt him in. Axel started to shut down little pieces of himself. Others he set aside in his head, not knowing whether to cancel them out, or just temporarily tie them off.” P.75
“Today, if history doesn’t fit, some sanitized, myopic view, it is rewritten. The only good history is the history that makes America great. If it doesn’t do that, it was either a mistake or it didn’t happen.” P.84
“He always makes room in her stories for himself. Room where he can stand and be a part. If she talks about something she’s done with two of her friends, he always adds room for another in his mind so he can be there too. Sometimes he brings Lion and Sal along with him.” P.84
“The ride, takes on the feel of walking in a dream, a tonnage of sleep, riding through the night, on the back of a blind whale out for a stroll.” P.119
“He stands between the woman who took her life in the tree, and the house. He shares with a woman he realizes he doesn’t know.
He turns and, in one smooth motion, levels, aims and fires, sending a tight pattern of copperplated shot into the trunk of the oak, and then two more right after it.” P.135
“They drag their shacks out onto the millpond that still backs up enough power to turn the wheels that run the looms, but now the looms are gone, and the water goes about the business of warehousing fish and looking pristine.” P.142
“Florida is a state asshole has come to hate. It seems to be a place where children aren’t safe. Their spirited away from their parents never to be seen again. It seems to be a place where Peter Pan and the Pied Piper work overtime, leading children to cast off from the windowsill, barnstorm the chimney, and then disappear into the night. Sometimes the parents steal their own children.” P.153
“The road, runs out under the tires, and the limbs of the trees lace, the night sky high overhead. Trees, water, and towns run by silently as he makes his passage. He thinks of the people inside the houses, caught in private seas of dream, unaware of him driving past their doors with danger, following somewhere behind.” P.191
“Asel doesn’t reply. He knows that the man wants to talk. He learned long ago that people have a need to talk for the sake of talking, and that the sound they make is the only thing they have. When you become a part of it, they own you. They can then lay down the rules, and at their gentle walk away, thinking you’re a fool.” P.208
“I wouldn’t change this in any way,” she says, her voice, soft, and distant. “The darkness is all around, and it’s fine. I’ve come to like the dark.”
“It was in the north, Asel tell her. “It will be different now. I know it will.”
“No, it won’t,” she says, “but we’ll pretend it is. We’ll pretend it never happened.” P.226
July 28, 2023
Olmstead’s first novel contains two powerful plot lines: one of Asel, the Maine frontiersman and guide making his way (literally and figuratively) from the wilds to civilized life, from being a feral, ignorant boy to a strong, intelligent man, and the other is of the same protagonist hiding out from a couple of vengeful gun runners.
The first layer of plot is gorgeous. Olmstead reminds me of Steinbeck carefully crafting his entourage of characters from the impoverished dregs of society into something intimate and beautiful; something akin to a community and loving family of misfits like in “Tortilla Flat” or “Cannery Row.”
He also delves, almost mystically, into Asel’s encounters with nature as he moves like a hunter-shaman through the mists of forests stalking prey and encountering death. At one time, his quasi-shamanic nature shifts and he experiences an altered state while looking up at a forest canopy where, “For a time he can see it all. He can see through the bark and into the sapwood and through that into the red heart that climbs like a spike from the taproot” (131).
I read “Coal Black Horse” before “Soft Water” and fell in love with this aspect of Olmstead’s writing. Namely, his ability to relate transcendent experience. This, along with the atmosphere of ‘communitas’ made the novel worth reading.
However, the second layer of plot made the narrative seem a bit disjointed and clumsily put together. The last chapter wrapped everything up too quickly, easily and seemed hastily written. Without it, the gun running portion would have done well to have been resolved when he returns to Maine and works with his previous crew.
Rich in symbolism and resonating a with a pantheistic tone, this novel celebrates the human spirit, the natural world, the union of both, and the “soft water” one can make in finding the love that unites each together to make a full life.
The first layer of plot is gorgeous. Olmstead reminds me of Steinbeck carefully crafting his entourage of characters from the impoverished dregs of society into something intimate and beautiful; something akin to a community and loving family of misfits like in “Tortilla Flat” or “Cannery Row.”
He also delves, almost mystically, into Asel’s encounters with nature as he moves like a hunter-shaman through the mists of forests stalking prey and encountering death. At one time, his quasi-shamanic nature shifts and he experiences an altered state while looking up at a forest canopy where, “For a time he can see it all. He can see through the bark and into the sapwood and through that into the red heart that climbs like a spike from the taproot” (131).
I read “Coal Black Horse” before “Soft Water” and fell in love with this aspect of Olmstead’s writing. Namely, his ability to relate transcendent experience. This, along with the atmosphere of ‘communitas’ made the novel worth reading.
However, the second layer of plot made the narrative seem a bit disjointed and clumsily put together. The last chapter wrapped everything up too quickly, easily and seemed hastily written. Without it, the gun running portion would have done well to have been resolved when he returns to Maine and works with his previous crew.
Rich in symbolism and resonating a with a pantheistic tone, this novel celebrates the human spirit, the natural world, the union of both, and the “soft water” one can make in finding the love that unites each together to make a full life.
September 27, 2025
3-1/2 stars
Reminiscent of the writings of Jim Harrison (The Road Home):
"When they're gone, he rolls onto his back and stares up into the tree crowns just now coursing with the fluid that gives rise to the leaf buds that dot the branches as they web the sky. For a time he can see it all. He can see through the bark and into the sapwood and through that into the red heart that climbs like a spike from the taproot."
"They were all the same, those moments that clear away entire memories, entire histories, bleaching away the words that were scratched inside the first set of bones, meant to be kept secret and passed along from one to the next."
"Caddis flies are somewhere between larvae and wing. They're in stones, sand, water and grass. The earliest ones will die when it turns to night, but for now the season has set in again and, with the rush of waters, it's as if snow can be heard melting out from under itself."
Reminiscent of the writings of Jim Harrison (The Road Home):
"When they're gone, he rolls onto his back and stares up into the tree crowns just now coursing with the fluid that gives rise to the leaf buds that dot the branches as they web the sky. For a time he can see it all. He can see through the bark and into the sapwood and through that into the red heart that climbs like a spike from the taproot."
"They were all the same, those moments that clear away entire memories, entire histories, bleaching away the words that were scratched inside the first set of bones, meant to be kept secret and passed along from one to the next."
"Caddis flies are somewhere between larvae and wing. They're in stones, sand, water and grass. The earliest ones will die when it turns to night, but for now the season has set in again and, with the rush of waters, it's as if snow can be heard melting out from under itself."
April 22, 2019
Swirling through a difficult and beautiful life, you travel with Asel, experiencing his deep fears and essentially practical growth through his clear eyes and mind. Coarse wildness is relaxed through the forms and solutions of water in time and sentiment. Violence, gentleness, serenity, and unease carry this story to a strange conclusion, but not without satisfaction.
September 5, 2021
I really enjoyed this up until the ending.
July 18, 2009
Well-written story about a primitive from the Maine woods and his introduction to modern society and all its ills. Kind of a Tarzan goes to London story. I enjoyed the writing but had a hard time suspending disbelief.
Read
August 7, 2011Vintage contemporaries, who gave us Russo's Mohawk, are predictably well chosen. This was given to me by a friend. Rural Maine and New Hampshire provide the setting for this novel of alienation and revenge and love.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews