In this broadcast, I will be reading two short stories. The first is by the award-winning gay author David Leavitt entitled Gravity. Leavitt's story explores the minute ways small everyday events take on special significance in the face of death and a mother's love. The second is by the award-winning author Annie Proulx entitled Brokeback Mountain in which an uncommon love story set in mountain country unfolds between the ranch hands Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist. Because of its length, I'll be splitting the story into four parts. I'll be reading the first part on this podcast. Listen! 1. Gravity by David Leavitt Among the many imaginative works --- poetry, prose, plays, memois, polemics --- written in an epoch of AIDS, when the very source of all creativity in certain quarters of our culture has been threatened, none is more powerfully succinct and more humansly moving than David Leavitt's "Gravity," in which the unspeakable is depicted in domestic and wholly convincing terms. The victory that constitutes the story's epiphany is a small one, but it is a victory. (excerpt from the introduction for Gravity in The Oxford Book of American Short Stories edited by Joyce Carol Oates) 2. Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx (part 1 of 4). Annie Proulx, a Pulitzer Prize winning novelist, packs a tremendous amount of information and incredible prose in 58 short pages. "Brokeback Mountain" is a heart-wrenching, gritty novella about two tough ranch hands who meet on a job, and, inexplicably, fall in love. These stoic, impecunious, high-school dropouts, who live rough lives, are desperately in need of a job. Both Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist sign up with "Farm and Ranch Employment" and end up herding for the same sheep operation on Brokeback Mountain. Ennis is engaged to be married when he meets Jack and doesn't consider himself "queer." Neither does Jack. The two men embark on an intimacy that they feel is their own business, as long as it isn't hurting anybody else. It's just sex between two, lonely, horny, guys and it means nothing. When the summer is over and they part, Ennis feels horrible about leaving Jack. If, what they had together meant nothing, then why can't Ennis shake the bad feeling separation brings? (excerpt from Cheri Rosenberg's review of Brokeback Mountain on Amazon.com) Download Queer Visions Podcast Three (mp3) or Subscribe to the Queer Visions Podcast Feed (iTunes, MyYahoo, Odeo, etc.). This broadcast is 20 minutes in duration.
