Praise for Brokeback Mountain

"When I first read 'Brokeback Mountain,' Annie Proulx's seminal short story about gay cowboys in love, I wondered how I might carry it with me forever, literally, in the form of a tattoo... I wonder sometimes if most great love stories aren't also ghost stories." —Michael Cunningham, from The New Yorker appreciation (March 3, 2025)

“Proulx’s understanding is at its most remarkable in the astonishing ‘Brokeback Mountain.’ She knows what she could only know... by the infrared that allows a very few writers clear sight in the dark of the imagination.” —Richard Eder, The New York Times Book Review

“’Brokeback Mountain’ does some of the best things a story can do. It abolishes the old West clichés, excavates and honors a certain kind of elusive life, then nearly levels you with the emotional weight at its center.” —Gail Caldwell, The Boston Sunday Globe

“A stand-out story... ‘Brokeback Mountain’ is the sad chronology of a love affair between two men who can’t afford to call it that. They know what they’re not—not queer, not gay—but have no idea what they are.” —Walter Kirn, New York

Praise for Annie Proulx’s Short Stories

“Annie Proulx is a genuine character—a true original. She has a shrewd understanding of people, a strong feeling for landscape . . . and a wry sense of humor rather like Mark Twain’s.” —Los Angeles Times

“With her biting, invigorating prose, Annie Proulx evokes the expansive landscape her characters hold dear.” —O, The Oprah Magazine

“Ms. Proulx writes with all the brutal beauty of one of her Wyoming snowstorms.” —Michael Knight, The Wall Street Journal

“It’s the prose, as much as the inventiveness of the stories that shines and shines. Every single sentence surprises and delights and just bowls you over.” —Carolyn See, The Washington Post Book World