Annie Proulx. Brokeback Mountain (1998)

     Annie Proulx. Brokeback Mountain (1998) Reprint of a New Yorker story. I read about 1/3rd of it and skimmed the rest. The style seems more important than the story, which delineates a homosexual affair between two drifters, both of whom end up loners, losing whatever connection to community they had when they abandon their wives (or vice versa). Raymond Carver I think does a better job of treating such themes. It may be that Proulx intends the story to show that unacknowledged homosexuality exacts a heavy price, but that’s a truism. It may be she wants to show that even among the ill-educated passion flows true and deep, and love hurts. Many New Yorker stories give me the impression, as this one does, that the reader is slumming, perhaps because they are set amidst ads for goods that the characters in the stories will never be able to afford (and may never desire) * (2004)
     Update: in 2005, a movie of the story was released, It won 3 Oscars.