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Jennifer
Rating:
 
Review
This collection of short stories, including the now famous "Brokeback Mountain", are all written about dry, rough characters in Wyoming. All have love or lust for the wrong person in common, with their fate sealed by trying, but usually never successfully, to negotiate the brutal land of Wyoming. Annie Proulx obviously loves this unruly country, and has a unique way of integrating "wild west" characters while eloquently describing the setting in each story. "Brokeback Mountain" is my favorite of the stories, where magic happens with the development of the characters Jack and Ennis, the two star-crossed lovers who cannot be together because of extenuating circumstances in their lives. Sometimes the stars align when a writer tells a story, and they definitely did with this one. It's a sad and beautiful story all at the same time. This is a must-read, especially if you are familiar with and love Annie's writing style.
Best Line:
from "The Bunchgrass at the Edge of the World": "That was it: stand around long enough you'd get to sit down."
Kim
Rating:
Review
This collection of short stories by one of my favorite authors is true Annie Proulx with Wyoming woven throughout each tale. Starting with The Half-Skinned Steer, an odd story about a man driving from Massachusetts to Wyoming to attend his brother's funeral and recalling an even stranger tale regarding said steer, to the last, and now infamous Brokeback Mountain, which contrary to popular belief, is not about gay cowboys. It's a love story, dammit, a bittersweet tale of Ennis and Jack, both destined to love one another passionately and secretly. The Mud Below is an interesting tale of Diamond Fetts, bull rider extraordinaire, and two short-shorts, Job History is witty and matter-of-fact, and The Blood Bay is fun with just a little gore. People in Hell Just Want a Drink of Water tells of two families taking care of business, not limited to their own, in The Bunchgrass Edge of the World we meet Ottaline Touhey, destined matriarch of her daddy's ranch, who has a Stephen King-esqe relationship with a tractor, a Pair of Spurs is more about Car Scrope and Mrs. Freeze than cowboy boot adornments, A Lonely Coast is an identifiable tale of a woman watching her friend self-destruct, The Governors of Wyoming introduces us to friends/fellow activists Wade Walls and Shy Hamp, two seriously flawed men, and their encounter with the Birch family, and 55 Miles to the Gas Pump is short with a punch, especially the last sentence. All the characters in these stories are detailed and a little sad, some are despicable and horrible, and others are pitiful and lonesome, but all have so many human traits it's scary. While the Wyoming setting is the same in each story, sexuality is also a common thread, which is not confused with love in the least. Except for Ennis and Jack.
Best Line:
There were so many, it was hard to choose just one, but here's a particularly descriptive paragraph from A Lonely Coast regarding a local watering hole: "There were times when I thought the Buckle was the best place in the world, but it could shift on you and then the whole dump seemed a mess of twist-face losers, the women with eyebrows like crowbars, the men covered with bristly red hair, knuckles the size of new potatoes, showing the gene pool was small and the rivulets that once fed it had dried up."
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