The Mud Below

by Annie Proulx

Short story by Annie Proulx published in The New Yorker June 22, 1998.

The Mud Below is the tale of Diamond Felts - a small-time rodeo rider with a painful family past behind him. His mother was adamant against him going into the rodeo, but he did it anyway. And now he travels around to little dusty towns, and takes his chances on massive heaving bulls.

Annie Proulx's masterful language and fierce love of Wyoming are evident in this breathtaking tale of loneliness, quick violence, and desperation, set in a landscape both stark and magnificent -- by an author writing at the peak of her craft

Genres: Short Stories

45 pages, ebook

First published June 22, 1998

About the author

Edna Annie Proulx (Chinese:安妮 普鲁) is an American journalist and author. Her second novel, The Shipping News (1993), won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for fiction in 1994. Her short story "Brokeback Mountain" was adapted as an Academy Award, BAFTA and Golden Globe Award-winning major motion picture released in 2005. Brokeback Mountain received massive critical acclaim and went on to be nominated for a leading eight Academy Awards, winning three of them. (However, the movie did not win Best Picture, a situation with which Proulx made public her disappointment.) She won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for her first novel, Postcards.

She has written most of her stories and books simply as Annie Proulx, but has also used the names E. Annie Proulx and E.A. Proulx.

Reviews

[chad chrysanthemum]

> "As he drove toward the clangor and flash of the noon arena, he considered the old saddle-bronco rider rubbing leather for thirty-seven years, Leecil riding off into the mosquito-clouded sunset, the ranch hand bent over a calf, slitting the scrotal sac. The course of life’s events seemed slower than the knife but not less thorough."

Annie Proulx remains an incredible writer. So rich, so much to dig in to. Understated, raw, beautiful but not baroque. Alive in hot bright flashes that fade to familiarity -- or is it love? It's hard to tell.

[Liv Bloemhard]

Peak

[Anna]

Harrowing story, but beautiful text.

[Mariella]

Vivid ?

[Jennifer Cooper]

Diamond Felts, the protagonist of this short story comes across as an egotistical character, with no depth and certainly one without empathy. It makes it very hard to like him, particularly after one scene, but as the story progressed he slowly begins to grow. I think this story may have been more suited to a novella, give Diamond more room to grow.

[Ray LaManna]

This is a classic Western story...and one of Annie's best.

[Ryan]

This one really grabbed a hold of me. I wish this had been a novella or a whole novel because the way Proulx writes is entrancing. She gives us a whole look at a complicated man who funnels his anger and energy into an activity that will ultimately be his end. Like with a lot of other works in “Close Range: Wyoming Stories”, Proulx writes about rural life in terms of unavoidable fate, a Greek tragedy on the prairie and the scablands.

[Charlotte Corrigan]

Thoroughly enjoyed this short story! I had to read this for one of my University modules. Tells the tale of Diamond Felts, a misogynistic bull-rider. I have nothing but contempt for the protagonist. Its portrayal of the Texan cowboy setting was truly remarkable. Great read! 🧡

[Caroline]

2.5

[Tia]

yeehaw

[Ania]

yeehaw

[John Ollerton]

A low life as a bull rider at rodeo, all busted noses and limbs, little money and no family ties.