Mule Boy

by Andrew Krivak

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.

Genres: Historical Fiction

192 pages, Paperback

Expected publication February 24, 2026

About the author

The grandson of Slovak immigrants, Andrew Krivak grew up in Pennsylvania, has lived in London, and has taught at Harvard, Boston College, and the College of the Holy Cross. He lives with his wife and three children in Somerville, Massachusetts and Jaffrey, New Hampshire.

Reviews

[Angela M · Rating 5 out of 5]

The wooden rosary beads that belonged to his father, carved from a tree in his homeland before coming to America, the complete works of Shakespeare, the book of Jonah hand written in the Hebrew he learned from his friend Jacobson while in prison, the haunting memories, and the love he has carried in his heart all these years for the little girl Magda, who became the woman he loved. These are the things that Ondro Prach keeps close to him now that he’s an old man living out his last days in the forests of New Hampshire. He recounts his time as a mule boy in the coal mines of Pennsylvania in 1929 when he was 13 years old as he witnesses death when the mine collapses. He becomes the survivor imprisoned by his past throughout his life. We come to know the impact on him as he tells the events of his life.

He recounts the gruesome, grueling details of the miners’ deaths, their last words about their families they would never see again, how they guided Ondro to pick at the rock and move it, to find a place toward light and life for him, as they faced death. It’s gut wrenching to live in his thoughts and even more so as he meets with the surviving families. Almost like a pilgrimage, they come to him many years later to hear what Ondro has witnessed, to know what happened to their father, grandfather or great grandfather, to know their last words.

I first fell for Andrew Krivak’s writing when I read The Sojourn more than ten years ago. My admiration has continued with every novel of his that I’ve read since then. His prose is lyrical as always, but the structure of this one is different than his other novels . It’s an introspective, intense, beautiful and searing stream of consciousness. With the sorrow and grief, there are also moments of joy as Ondro falls in love, reaps great satisfaction from literature and the beauty of the land around him . I fell into the beautiful rhythm of this incredibly affecting story and cried at the beautiful ending.

I received a copy of this from Bellevue Literary Press through Edelweiss

[switterbug (Betsey) · Rating 5 out of 5]

A mule boy is a child-laborer in the 1900s coal mines who carted the coal cars from chamber to chamber. Ondro Prach is the thirteen-year-old in Krivak’s masterpiece who rides Wicked, the mule, proudly doing his work with dignity in a Pennsylvania coal mine in 1929. He’s trying to help out his widowed mother—his father died in a mine accident—and his mother’s sewing work is barely getting them by. Poor Ondro was a child who never knew what it was like to be a child. As this tragic tale unfolds, Ondro is trapped in a mine accident with the brave and skilled miners that he’s always revered.

Now, as an old man, he continues to reflect and ponder on the mine collapse and the men he worked with every day. That pivotal and tragic day led to Ondro’s own collapse—of his spirit, his hopes, and his self-determination. Life became one long prison sentence to him, as he carried this burden of guilt and shame, so sure that he failed his fellow workers. Hope for his soul comes from the most unexpected places, including a gifted and scholarly prisoner who taught him Hebrew and the influence of Parmenides.

In his old age, Ondro is sought out by the families of the miners who didn’t survive. They ask him about the last days and hours of their loved ones’ lives. As Ondro recollects that traumatic event, I gasped at the breadth and scope of how Ondro relives it—an aperture that widens with every word. The magic of this book is in the telling, a reconstruction that stilled me, shook me, held me in the shape that Krivak’s gripping narrative takes. He made the act of self-forgiveness metaphysical.

Ondro’s heavy climb out of his self-made prison is stunning, astonishing in its depth and authenticity. I’m not exaggerating when I say I was sobbing as I turned the pages, first for the darkness of tragedy and then for the glimpse of the light. Despite the elegiac prose—one long sentence without a period (but, yes, there are commas), the pauses are natural. As it states on the book, the prose is set to the rhythm of human breath.

The narrative is magnetic, and you can read this short book in one sitting. However, I was so allured by its magical, mystical, and spiritual story that I took my time, I digested every word. This is an unforgettable tale that I recommend to every literature lover. A thousand thanks to Bellevue Press for sending me an ARC to review. I’d give 10 stars if I could!

“…death is not a destruction of being but a change of state…”

[Jill · Rating 5 out of 5]

What is it that I’ve just read? I daresay, it’s Andrew Krivak’s masterwork.

I rarely anoint a book with the tag “perfect.” But I can honestly not identify one word out of place or one scene that’s superfluous. This book IS perfection, and if I sound as if I’m over-the-top with my praise, it’s just that I’ve rarely read a book with the power to immerse and move me the way this one did. Much as I’ve liked all of Andrew Krivak’s past novels, this one is in a class by itself.

Set in the coal mines of Pennsylvania in the early 1900s, Ondro Prach, the 13-year-old son of a single mother and a father who died in the mines, begins a new job: leading a mule named Wicked (for good reason). The job is precarious – he and the mule are charged with hauling coal from shafts deep within the mine to the surface. Ondro, like most young teens, never wastes a second considering the danger. That is, until the mine collapses.

Plunged into darkness for several days as one by one, the miners and their butties uselessly struggle to live, Ondro emerges in a sort of permanent darkness. He is in a prison of his own making, as the images haunt and shape his life. As we learn from the beginning, as Ondro nears the end of his life, he will be visited by the families of the doomed miners, who will want to know what really happened in those last days. In allowing himself to remember, maybe he will make his own peace.

The prose is so elegiac and incantatory that I felt “twinned” with Ondro, feeling what he did, seeing what he did, unable to lift myself from the page. Although I am not a woman of faith, I know that Andrew Krivak, who wrote a spiritual memoir, has been on a lifelong journey to respond to the promptings of God and to surrender to His will. In creating a novel this remarkable, about tunneling through the worst of times and never giving up on what gives life meaning, I think he has accomplished his goal. I cannot thank Bellevue Literary Press enough for allowing me to be an early reader in exchange for an honest review. This book will not be published until early 2026, and readers have a real treat in store for them.

[sophie · Rating 5 out of 5]

thank you to edelweiss for the drc! 20 pages in, i was like, ooh, this is kind of hard to read, I'm not sure if I like it. But by the end, I was literally in chills almost crying at work, so I feel like that stands by itself as a review.

On top of the crazy emotional journey this takes you on, the prose is also just so fantastic - and I had high expectations, because Krivak's The Bear has some of my favorite pieces of prose ever, but despite the completely different tone, this really, really makes you feel like you're stepping where the character steps, breathing the same air, hearing the same sounds, feeling the same feelings. I can't stress enough how different my life is from Ondro's (case in point: I had to google at least one word per page) but I felt so connected to him, especially the parts illustrating his life as an older man. There's just something about it, man. Sure, this was made for me in many ways - an intense character study, a funky style, an unflinching look at the Horrors - but I think there's so much to discover in this text, and I can't wait for other people with different perspectives to read this and tell me what they found.

While I wait a billion years (okay, less than one year) for this to pub, I'm going to work my way through Krivak's backlist. His writing really is singular, and I can't wait to see what else I discover!

[Mary Lins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Attention fans of Andrew Krivak! Although it doesn’t come out until February 2026, “Mule Boy”, is an utterly beautiful, lyrical, heartbreaking, yet soul-lifting short novel! Pre-order it so you won’t miss it!

Ondro Prach, now an old man, is relaying the story of what happened when he was a thirteen-year-old “Mule Boy” in a Pennsylvanian coal mine collapse in 1929. His memories beautifully and vividly convey the darkness, the danger, the fear, the comradery, and the mysterious rules of the mines.

Krivak’s poetic prose will not only bring you into the dark confines of the mine, but it will also let you into Ondro’s life-long “prison of the mind” as the only survivor.

Krivak fans (and I am clearly one) will immediately notice that this novel is different than any of his others. Readers, allow yourself to surrender to the stream of Ondro’s storytelling and his memories and be assured that he will sweep you away. This is the type of novel that is easy to read in one sitting because you will not want to break the spell.

As an old man living in a remote forest by a pond, relatives of the other men who were in the mine with him begin to make pilgrimages to him in order to ask about their loved one’s deaths and last words. Make no mistake, this is a book about death, but the uplifting theme is that death is not “no more” it’s just a passing into another realm of being and “where you begin, there you will return again.”

I very rarely cry reading novels anymore, but Krivak ALWAYS manages to raise at least one lump to my throat in every novel…this one had several moments like that – including the last line of the “Acknowledgements”! That’s a first!

Many thanks to Bellevue Literary Press for an Advanced Reader’s Copy of this treasure by the inimitable Andrew Krivak.

[Lillian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thirteen year old Ondro Prach has followed in his father's footsteps to work in a Pennsylvania coal mine. His job is to handle the mule, Wicked and haul cartloads of coal from the shafts to the surface. On New Years Day 1929, the room in which he and three other men are working collapses. Ondro lives but the burden of that survival imprisons him in his grief.

Elegant language and masterful pacing set Krivak's narrative far and above most other novels. His deeply human characters evoke so much emotion that there were instances when my eyes often filled with tears and I had to catch my breath more than once.
I truly have not read a book so skillfully told with such glorious prose in a very long time.
Mule Boy is fairly flawless.

I am eternally grateful to Bellevue Literary Press for the opportunity to be an early reader of this amazing novel.

[Cheri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Set in 1929, beginning on New Year's Day, this story shares the lives of the men that begin in the coal mines, as well as a boy who is thirteen, who takes on the task of a 'mule boy', as this begins, even knowing the fact that his own father had lost his life in the mines. Still, he is hopeful that he can make a difference in his own life, and perhaps in other's lives, as well.

Andrew Krivak has written a very moving, often heartbreaking, story, but there is also so much beauty in his words, as well. 


Pub Date: 24 Feb 2026

Many thanks for the opportunity to read Andrew Krivak's 'Mule'

[Raima Larter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing, poetic story of the life of a man who, as a boy, survived a coal mine disaster. Reading this book was challenging at first, since it is told in prose with no sentences - not a single period in it - but after awhile, the voice made its way inside me and I was enthralled.

I'll be writing a longer review later when I've had time to fully absorb this masterpiece. Suffice it to say, for now, that I've rarely read a book this well-written. The story is achingly sad, but ultimately triumphant - well worth the agony that this boy (and man) has to go through to get to the reward at the end. Just a thoroughly beautiful story.

[Beverly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thanks to whoever donated the ARC to my LFL outside my house. This is a luminous heart-stopping book that I read in one sitting. Highly recommend.