MULE BOY

After a 1929 mining accident, a young boy’s life splits as he tries to find meaning in his lucky survival.

Krivak manages to portray an entire life as a fever dream through the anxious propulsion of an entire book that unfolds as a single sentence. A love story that honors patience and destiny, this novel centers around Ondro Prach, whose life splits in a violent fracture when he’s the sole survivor of an accident in a Hazelton, Pennsylvania, coal mine. Ondro tells the story of his job guiding the mule and the horrific accident that occurs the first and only time he goes down into the mine when he’s just 13. He’s relaying his memory of the accident to family members of the miners who died, who come to visit him as an old man at his home in New Hampshire. They make these pilgrimages to learn about the final words of their fathers, uncles, and grandfathers. Ondro tries to find meaning for himself in a life that’s been defined by tragedy; his father, too, died in a mining accident when Ondro was just a boy. He spent time in jail during World War II because he refused to fight, a decision informed by the pacifism he embraced after having been bullied in school for surviving the mining accident. Ondro’s life has been given purpose by the love of Magda Chibala, the daughter of one of the men who died when Ondro was the mule boy. After the funeral, she hugs him as others turn away, and this gesture reverberates through their shared lives. The two eventually marry, and while Ondro’s time in prison leads to their separation, the book’s final section captures a breathtaking reunion that artfully explicates a philosophy of life, love, and death that’s subtly illuminated throughout.

Fate and chance are examined with artful, electrifying energy.