The Mud Below by Annie Proulx is the second story in the collection Close Range: Wyoming Stories, which was shortlisted for The Pulitzer Prize, won by the author for the remarkable The Shipping News, adapted for the big screen

 

The Mud Below by Annie Proulx is the second story in the collection Close Range: Wyoming Stories, which was shortlisted for The Pulitzer Prize, won by the author for the remarkable The Shipping News, adapted for the big screen

 

 

<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg07xtKX7lHAExP_Jd9tUAmuUv1T9tEZPDun9Y8s04P1h_ymcabHURlHiBTAk4tX3h5apfBNaGBB5fXWYDg1l1PMbDwe-sxOmKgHu7jqonTYqMbLN3sn8v4IK9tYpTOhoU9QskQOdfmHmuOO__7VxE7VMYk03zQZcPnKpMjQIKR7NN_lL3TbJuoZZsASVLO/w177-h316/image.jpeg" />

 

 

9 out of 10

 

The Shipping News https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2026/11/the-shipping-news-by-annie-proulx-won.html has won The Pulitzer Prize, and Close Range: Wyoming Stories was shortlisted for the same award, both the first, The Half-Skinned Steer, and The Mud Below are excellent stories, Brokeback Mountain is in this same collection too

 

While the first tale was somewhat terrifying, the second has drama, but it is not a ‘real horror show’, The Half-Skinned Deer has this scene: the rancher gets this steer down, and we have a quite detailed description of what follows, the tying of the legs, then skin taken over the claves, I am probably making this up…

https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2026/10/a-clockwork-orange-by-anthony-burgess.html A Clockwork Orange is a spectacular magnum opus, with a fabulous language, words like millicent, bricva, and then the expression ‘real horror show’, which applies to what happens in The Half-Skinned Steer: the farmer decides to take his dinner

 

but when he returns to the animal, there is nothing left, he thinks maybe some envious neighbor came to collect it, looks for tire, or other tracks, but there is nothing…eventually, the poor beast appears in the condition we know from the title, this is some outré, haunting image…The Mud Below has its own vicissitudes

https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2026/11/the-son-by-philipp-meyer-was-finalist.html Diamond Felts is the hero, he wants to ride bulls, albeit when he was first invited to do that, he did not want to, he is not a cowboy, he was born in the city, and his mother had another future panned for him, he wants The Mud Below, somehow

 

the connection with his mother is tense, and that may be a euphemism, she called his Shorty, he desires tall women, but he is called many names, due to his shortness, we can even say that he rapes one, while her husband is…waiting in a long line at a fast-food restaurant, Diamond the spouse are in the car, waiting

then he jumps on her, and despite her refusal and rejection, he has sex (rape, when it is nonconsensual) with her, she leaves the car, joins her husband and tells him what happened, ergo the furious man comes for the villain, the latter prevails, until the wife hits him with a waffle iron, the main character does get punished

 

the bulls he rides are very powerful animals, heavy and dangerous, the limit is eight seconds, the rider has to stay there, and depending on the time spent on the beats, some take the prize and the money, but when the result is a serious fall, there is no medical team, the man can be crippled, or even killed in the ring

 

here is the link to my rodeo, see what you think about it

 

https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2026/08/do-you-have-any-suggestions-how-to-make.html

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