the Heath character violently grabs the Jake character and they start to have a man-on-man fuck fest. I swear I was worse than a 1940s sailor freshly docked at bay.Īnd just as my eyes were happily feasting on all of that eye candy in Levi's, the weirdest thing happened. Sparkles? Why don't you come on over here with those shiny eyes?” My friend slid deeper into her seat and was like, “Rein it in, sister.”īut then Jake Gyllenhaal appeared on the screen and I had never seen him before and I was like, “What's up, Mr. Before anyone could say “Ledger,” I was making Mmmm, Mmmm yummy sounds and saying things like “Mama like, oh, Mama like.” When Heath Ledger appeared on the giant screen, I got sassy, and my friend got uncomfortable.įor those of you who know me, you know I can get very outspoken about my leading men, and Heath has always made my heart beat faster. My friend got popcorn, and I got comfortable. Sure, I'd go.Īlmost no one was in the theater that morning. Truly, the last movie I saw in a theater was Lincoln, in 2012.īut, one day back in 2005, a good friend called and wondered if I'd like to spend that snowy Sunday in a theater with her, watching something called Brokeback Mountain.īrokeback Mountain? Never heard of it. In gorgeous and haunting prose, Proulx limns the difficult, dangerous affair between two cowboys that survives everything but the world's violent intolerance. The New Yorker won the National Magazine Award for Fiction for its publication of 'Brokeback Mountain,' and the story was included in Prize Stories 1998: The O. But over the course of many years and frequent separations this relationship becomes the most important thing in their lives, and they do anything they can to preserve it. At first, sharing an isolated tent, the attraction is casual, inevitable, but something deeper catches them that summer.īoth men work hard, marry, and have kids because that's what cowboys do. Annie Proulx has written some of the most original and brilliant short stories in contemporary literature, and for many readers and reviewers, 'Brokeback Mountain' is her masterpiece.Įnnis del Mar and Jack Twist, two ranch hands, come together when they're working as sheepherder and camp tender one summer on a range above the tree line.

Brokeback mountain by annie proulx