BRENT VAN STAALDUINEN
  • home
  • NBL launch
  • About Me
    • bio
    • media
    • Story Basic
    • awards & notables
    • reading services
  • Books
    • boy: a novel >
      • BOY Launch
    • nothing but life: a novel
    • cut road: stories
    • saints, unexpected: a novel
  • Stories
  • events
  • news & blog
  • contact

Broken Heart Inspiration

8/24/2012

0 Comments

 
Picture
My third novel is a pilgrimage tale about a man who sets out to finish a mural his late mother had begun years before.

I'm reading a pilgrimage tale, too, called Coal Black Horse by Robert Olmstead, a dreamlike story of a boy who sets out into the chaos of the American Civil War to find and bring his father, a soldier, home. I'm enjoying it very much.

There is so much to enjoy in this novel, but this morning this passage leapt out at me. Robey, the protagonist, encounters the aftermath of the largest battle of the war and, shattered by the horror of the carnage, has is convicted to help the wounded whenever he can. He finds a soldier, blind and whose leg has been blown off, firing his pistol at a scavenging boar feeding on his amputated limb. The man can feel the beast's teeth as it feeds. Robey kills the boar, vowing to use its meat to help the other wounded soldiers. 

Later, "When he returned to the soldier who had endure the phantom pain, he was going to tell him that maybe he was blind because God thought he'd seen enough for one life, but when he arrived at his side he found him to be dead. On his chest was the revolver, a six-shot Remington. It was loaded and he understood that the soldier had left it for him. He also came to understand that he was finally finished with his believing in God."

My heart broke a little when I read that. Man, I love it when literature can do that.

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    March 2020
    January 2020
    November 2019
    October 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    July 2018
    March 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    March 2017
    January 2017
    November 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    April 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    August 2011

    Categories

    All
    Agent
    Agenting
    BOY
    CanLit
    Christmas
    Corktown
    Creative Non Fiction
    Creative Non-fiction
    E-book
    Fiction
    Flash Fiction
    GritLit
    GritLit2016
    Hamilton
    Ian Weir
    Kindle
    Kindle Direct
    Kobo
    Literature
    Mfa
    Nino Ricci
    Nothing But Life
    Novel
    Pitching
    Progeria
    Publishing
    Querying
    Saints
    Saints Unexpected
    Self-publish
    Self-publishing
    Short Fiction
    True Story
    Unexpected
    Writing
    YA
    Young Adult

    RSS Feed

© Brent van Staalduinen. All rights reserved. 
home     about     contact
  • home
  • NBL launch
  • About Me
    • bio
    • media
    • Story Basic
    • awards & notables
    • reading services
  • Books
    • boy: a novel >
      • BOY Launch
    • nothing but life: a novel
    • cut road: stories
    • saints, unexpected: a novel
  • Stories
  • events
  • news & blog
  • contact