Wednesday, November 05, 2008

Now she tells me

Annie Proulx no longer at home on the range - Los Angeles Times

Annie Proulx, author of Brokeback Mountain, presumably did not foresee this consequence:
"I wish I'd never written it," Proulx says...

Not because of the people of Saratoga, a town she doesn't think much of. Not even because the word "brokeback" has been misappropriated, as in, "Hey, you're not goin' brokeback on me, are you?"

It's all the manuscripts, screenplays and letters sent to her by men who rewrite or serialize her story, adding new characters, endings and even successive generations.

"These cover letters," she complains, "always begin with the sentence 'I'm not gay, but . . . ' They think that just because they are men, they understand men better than I do.
Elsewhere, she has given more detail:
She lamented that "remedial writers" are constantly sending "ghastly manuscripts and pornish rewrites of the story to me, expecting me to reply with praise and applause for 'fixing' the story..
Damn. What do I do now with my screenplay that deals with how Tim Blair and Mark Steyn accidentally meet up with Ennis and Andrew Sullivan, while all are moosehunting in the backwoods of New Hampshire, and, you know, one thing leads to another...

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