Mule Boy
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- Pre-Order
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- Expected 24 Feb 2026
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- $14.99
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- Pre-Order
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
An elegiac novel of men lost in a coal mining disaster and the boy who survives to tell the story
On New Year’s Day, 1929, Ondro Prach, the thirteen-year-old son of Slovak immigrants in Pennsylvania coal country, begins a new job as mule boy. He knows the danger—his father died in the mines—but he is proud of his position handling the animal that hauls cartloads of coal from shafts deep within the earth to the surface. After Ondro earns the trust of the miners and the mule in his charge, the room the men are working collapses and their fate is sealed.
From that moment onward, Ondro carries the hard memory of that day, a burden that leads to addiction and imprisonment, costing him his family. But, years later, when the miners’ loved ones come searching for answers, he finds the strength to share what the men spoke of and prayed for in the pitch black.
Told in incantatory prose set to the rhythm of human breath, this sublime novel turns the memento mori into a meditation not only on death but on what it takes to tunnel through darkness and live.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In one long, musical sentence, Krivak (The Bear) unspools the luminous story of Ondro, a son of Slovak immigrants and the only survivor of a 1929 Pennsylvania coal mine disaster. The narrative traces how the deaths of miners John Chibala and Stefan Bozak and their buddies Matty and Emil affect Ondro throughout his life. While in prison during WWII as a conscientious objector, a fellow inmate teaches him to "believe there is no not being," and that like those lost in the mine, "I will be of the earth one day." His wistful memories of working underground yield vivid images ("it was a thing of beauty... the sounds and shadows of the men inside that room like a play"). Over the years, Ondro is visited by the son, grandson, and great-grandson of Emil; he's able to tell them about Emil's harrowing last moments and to relay Emil's last words, telling his descendants "how much he loved your mother and thanked God for her because she was so beautiful." Ondro credits John with saving him, and John's daughter, Magda, becomes the love of his life. In the final pages, crucial details of how Ondro escaped come out during a fireside chat with Magda. The slow drip of information builds suspense, ensuring that readers don't tire of the breathless format. Along the way, Krivak brilliantly succeeds at plumbing the depths of the human spirit and showing how the dead live on in memory. This is flawless.
