Brokeback Mountain (short story)

Short story by Annie Proulx

"Brokeback Mountain" is a short story by American author Annie Proulx. It was originally published in The New Yorker on October 13, 1997, for which it won the National Magazine Award for Fiction in 1998. Proulx won a third place O. Henry Award for the story in 1998. A slightly expanded version of the story was published in Proulx's 1999 collection of short stories, Close Range: Wyoming Stories. The collection was a finalist for the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Screenwriters Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana adapted the story for the 2005 film. At that time, the short story and the screenplay were published together, along with essays by Proulx and the screenwriters, as Brokeback Mountain: Story to Screenplay. The story was also published separately in book form. This story has also been adapted as an opera by the same name, composed by Charles Wuorinen with a libretto in English by Proulx. It premiered at the Teatro Real in Madrid on January 28, 2014.

In 1963, two young men, Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist, are hired for the summer to look after sheep at a seasonal grazing range on the fictional Brokeback Mountain in Wyoming. Unexpectedly, they form an intense emotional and sexual attachment, but have to part ways at the end of the summer. Over the next twenty years, as their separate lives play out with marriages, children, and jobs, they continue reuniting for brief liaisons on camping trips in remote settings.

Proulx said she wrote the story based on her own reflections about life in the West. Regarding the setting, Proulx stated:

She mentioned once noticing a middle aged man in a bar, who appeared to be watching only the men playing pool, which led her to consider the life of a typical western ranch hand who might be gay. She wrote the story over a period of about six months, and went through more than sixty drafts. Working titles for the story included, "The Pleasures of Whiskey Mountain," "Bulldust Mountain," "Swill Swallow Mountain," and "Drinkard Mountain". Proulx said her main characters of the two men affected her long after the story was published. The film version rekindled her feelings for them — an attachment that she had previously rejected. In a 1999 interview in The Missouri Review, Proulx dispelled the rumor that she had fallen in love with her own fictional characters, claiming that notion was "repugnant," and that their central duty is to carry a story.

The film Brokeback Mountain (2005) won numerous awards, including Academy Awards (for 2005) for Best Adapted Screenplay (McMurtry and Ossana), Best Director (Ang Lee), and Best Original Score (Gustavo Santaolalla). It was nominated for a total of eight awards (the most that year), including Best Picture, Best Actor (Heath Ledger as Ennis), Best Supporting Actor (Jake Gyllenhaal as Jack), and Best Supporting Actress (Michelle Williams as Ennis' wife Alma). Its loss of Best Picture to Crash was not generally expected, though predicted by some.

Charles Wuorinen, a contemporary American composer, became interested in the story, and Proulx wrote the libretto to adapt her work. Their work was commissioned by Mortier of the New York City Opera and they started working together in 2008, completing it in 2012. The work premiered at the Teatro Real in Madrid on January 28, 2014.

A play adaptation, written by Ashley Robinson with music by Dan Gillespie Sells, starring Mike Faist as Jack and Lucas Hedges as Ennis debuted at @sohoplace on London's West End in May 2023. Described as a "play with music", the adaptation will feature Eddi Reader as The Balladeer, who will perform songs accompanied by a full country music band.