The Coldest Night

Finished January 2

The Coldest Night by Robert Olmstead

This novel is about a young man named Henry Childs. Henry and his mother Clemmie left their mountain home for the city of Charleston when he was young. Henry was athletic and liked nature. He began working at stables across the river after the owner met Clemmie at the veteran's hospital she worked at. 

Mercy, a girl a year older than him began coming to ride one of the horses in 1950, when she was in her senior year of high school. The two fall in love, but her wealthy family doesn't accept their relationship and despite their efforts, Henry finds himself alone. 

In his pain, he enlists and finds himself in Korea just as the battle for the Chosin Reservoir is starting, and the war scenes are brutally honest. In many ways, Henry is still a boy, but he finds himself taken under the wing of a man named Lew, also from Charleston, and the two stick together through the worst of it. 

We also see how Henry, broken in some ways, returns to Charleston, to find some things changed and some things the same as they were. He has trouble adjusting to civilian life, marked as he is by his wartime experiences. 

This is an emotional read, graphically violent at times, but so beautifully written that it captured me entirely.