When Annie Proulx’s short story Brokeback Mountain first appeared in the New Yorker in the late 1990s, one movie producer jumped at the opportunity to purchase the movie rights to the story. Years in the making, the story has reached almost epic proportions on the big screen, skipping from small venues to the Oscars in mere months. Audiences of all backgrounds were touched by the story and its powerful images as they were translated on screen. But first, those images belonged on the page.

The growing warmth between the gruff two men made a great movie because its original author made those moments tangible for producers, actors, and screenwriters. Proulx’s spare language conveys exactly the environment depicted, and it’s worth examining the short story by the same name whether you’ve seen the movie or not.

The plot is, by now, well-known. Two young men with farming backgrounds find themselves paired together for a summer sheepherding job on Brokeback Mountain. The work is tedious and lonely. The owner’s insistence that one man sleep near the animals while the other guards the base camp is quickly dismissed as the men find the camaraderie around their shared campfire more satisfying than the night alone.

Once the relationship becomes sexual, it is a careful balance between delicate expressions of emotions and raw communication. The two part ways without discussing any future to their practically unacknowledged relationship, but find ways to meet periodically over the course of their adult lives. Eventually, the relationship’s costs come between the men in several ways, leaving a void in the hearts of each man.

"I wish I knew how to quit you." By now, the phrase has become engraved in the minds of many who saw the movie, but Proulx’s dialogue has a simplicity that perfectly conveys the gut-wrenching pull she describes as beginning when they leave each other that first summer, and continuing until they part for the final time. As a young man denying his need for Jack, Ennis is confused when, at that first summer’s end, "He stopped at the side of the road and, in the whirling new snow, tried to puke but nothing came up. He felt about as bad as he ever had and it took a long time for the feeling to wear off."

In the interim of their relationship, both men continue with their lives and marry and have children. The movie develops the characters of the women, showing the pain they feel as they discover they are not enough for the man they married. In the story, Proulx suggests this with words simple enough to contain the inexpressible emotions of the two men. "‘Alma’ he said, ‘Jack and me ain’t seen each other in four years.’ As if that were a reason. He was glad the light was dim on the landing but did not turn away from her. ‘Sure enough,’ said Alma in a low voice. She had seen what she had seen."

Ennis leaves, quelling her barely articulated protests with, "‘Alma, you want smokes there’s some in the pocket a my blue shirt in the bedroom.’ They went off in Jack’s truck, bought a bottle of whiskey and within twenty minutes were in the Motel Siesta jouncing a bed."

Although her dialogue is perfect, Proulx’s description of the environment is what truly makes the story for me. Her phrases such as, "The room stank of semen and smoke and sweat and whiskey, of old carpet and sour hay, saddle leather, shit and cheap soap" reverberate almost to the point where the reader can taste the abandon with which the room is really used.

The most difficult part of the story for any reader (or audience) is always the breakup, the final parting of ways. I’ll bet that what enchanted straight audiences about Brokeback Mountain was their surprise at the feelings of sadness elicited in them for the loss of a relationship between two doomed men. But by the time we reach that point of the story, it’s clear that we are invested, and Proulx capitalizes on that beautifully: "Like vast clouds of steam from thermal springs in winter the years of things unsaid and now unsayable—admissions, declarations, shames, guilts, fears—rose around them. Ennis stood as if heart-shot, face grey and deep-lined, grimacing, eyes screwed shut, fists clenched, legs caving, hit the ground on his knees."

Overall, Proulx has created a masterpiece that has been brought majestically to the big screen for us. If you’ve seen the movie and been touched by it, consider allowing it to lead you back to the original words. If you’ve not gotten around to seeing the movie yet, wait. Absorb the awkwardness from the page first, acknowledge that the men are ordinary, feel the pull of Brokeback Mountain yourself, then use the movie to satisfy a return to a story so heart-breakingly open-ended.

Rebecca James lives and teaches in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Celebrating Hotchclaw
by Anne Allen Shockley
A&M Books, 290 pages

In 1974, award-winning author Anne Allen Shockley published her ground-breaking novel, Loving Her. That book gathered acclaim as the first novel by an African American author to have at its center an African American protagonist, and one which dealt explicitly with an interracial lesbian relationship.

Shockley’s much anticipated new book, Celebrating Hotchclaw, probes the life at a small Historically Black College (HBC) located in the small, southern town of Mayfield, Tennessee. Not, perhaps, since Jane Smiley’s Moo has such a glaring light been cast on the underpinnings and workings of college life. HBCs, so named that by the Education Department to denote those colleges founded before the 1954 Supreme Court decision to end segregation, are not so different from other institutions in that the same behaviors reveal many agendas not all of which reflect the best of academia.

Getting ready to celebrate its centennial, Hotchclaw is struggling. Strapped with financial woes and a shrinking enrollment there seem to be many obstacles to reaching the goal of a glorious 100th. Not the least of these is the infighting and power grabbing among the committee members where often it seems the centennial takes second place to their own ambitions.

Helmed by President Andrew Bullock, a fastidious, self aggrandizing man with a few of his own hidden secrets, Hotchclaw’s faculty is peppered with a roster of professors some of whose characteristics will make you cringe with both recognition and dismay. Dean Otis Edwards, charged with putting the centennial celebration together, is adrift with his own uncertainties, and whose prime focus is pleasing Bullock. Enter Dr. Tizzie Head, vampish, aggressive Head Librarian who co-chairs the committee, is willing to sleep her way to power, and has Otis’ position of Dean in her sights. And, there’s Joe Robinson, Ph.D. and misogynist, who always mentally refers to himself in the second person as Joe Robinson, Ph.D., so proud of his Ph.D. that he "had it on his letterheads, bank checks, wallet, desk nameplate, briefcase and mailbox."

Much consternation and whispering is unleashed when the mysterious Dr. Michael Stower, an assistant professor in the History Department, lies unconscious with a concussion in Mayfield Memorial Hospital. First rumored to have been the victim of a mugging, it is discovered that the concussion was caused by a slip on an oil spill on the track where he was jogging. Anxieties and speculations increase when Michael vanishes upon being released from the hospital. A disturbing revelation whips across campus bringing Dr. Bullock to the edge of rage. Bullock is flying by the seat of his pants financially and wants nothing to call undue attention to the college and mar the 100th celebration.

Caught up in the intra-mural politics is Angela Freemont who has fallen innocently in love with Michael and is stunned, puzzled, and hurt by his sudden departure with no word to her. Angela is an instructor in the English Department and also serves as assistant Librarian to Dr. Head. Struggling to understand what has happened to Michael and their budding relationship, she is handed the task of digging into the past history of Hotchclaw and compiling a commemorative history of the college by the buck-passing Dr. Head.

Grieving for Michael and determined to uncover what has happened, Angela receives support from best friend and colleague Dr. Wilhemina Browne, who chairs the English Department, and her loving Aunt, Portia LaGrange. Portia raised Angela when she was orphaned by an automobile accident at age 6. She has held on to family secrets for some time, and as Angela digs deeper into the past history of Hotchclaw with its own undiscovered truths of origin, discloses them to Angela along with the accompanying Jamaican proverb that refers to "two faces under one hat."

Things on campus continue to move at a frantic pace trying to round up speakers and funds. The roster of speakers includes award winning lesbian poet, Freewoman Black, author of the volume Bullets in the Ass, and just-released Ode to Our Black Vaginas—guaranteed to stir up interest and outrage Bullock. Dr. Adofo Ajamu, chairman of the African American Studies Department at Pennsylvania-located Penn Murray State University (where Michael Stower has accepted a teaching position) full of himself with his African roots, will share the dais.

All of this cast of characters and underlying themes adds up to an insightful look at campus life at an HBC, gives the reader the pleasure of watching a mystery unfold, and represents a love story that is both moving and real. Ann Allen Shockley weaves a tapestry that is fascinating and seamless. And, her writing that "Tennessee is noted for Jack Daniels whiskey, Walking Horses, Country Music, and Dolly Parton...and is the buckle on the Bible belt," displays the humor that is scattered throughout what is, in the end, a really great read.