Lydia Peelle, “Mule Killers”
Looking for love when the mules became obsolete.
(from The O. Henry Prize Stories 2006)
Cool, strange little story told by a gender-unknown narrator, telling the story of her/his father sorta-kinda courting his/her mother. The storyline runs astride with the tractors essentially putting mules out of work and, so, to death. Hard to explain the vibe here. I enjoyed reading it.
(I read this on the Explorer of the Seas)
posted by Patrick Rapa @ 11:59 PM
3 Comments:
Hi (:
Just a friendly helping hand! We do actually know the gender of the narrator.
At one point HE says: "Why he never told me the story when I was a boy, I don't know..."
So, it's a man. Unless the narrator refers to a time when she was a boy, where she now is a woman..... Probably not :) That was a joke.
- Kathrine
I loved the story. Our Short Story group read it and had a wonderful discussion.
Joan
Yes, this is a wonderful story. I wouldn't so much say the story 'runs astride' when it talks about the mules going to die because of tractors, though. I don't mean that to criticize your review, just that I found that part of the story really compelling. That's a huge part of the story! Which to me is about the death of an era, the grandfather and watching everything beautiful and loyal (and dependable) being replaced by whatever it is our age has become.
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