There is a long standing debate in literary circles that works of poetry, prose and fictional stories should stand on their own and seperate from the author. That authors are simply the creative mind and not personally involved in the work unless they explicitly state they are. On the other side of the debate are folks who say you cannot seperate the author from their work.
An imperfect analogy might be made of the corporations who make tasty treats for the grocery store are not thought of when someone eats their cake. Contrast that with Aunt Sara. If she makes that banana pudding like you have *never* had before, its memorable.
I come from the angle that you cannot seperate the creator from their work. Store bought is store bought, Aunt Sara is awesome! Even if, IF, a creative person can completely seperate themselves from their story or art, that in and of itself indicates something about them as an artist.
There are some authors that I don’t care to know their personal lives. The God I love and serve has the capacity to know all six billion+ people on the planet, I don’t. 
Then there are authors that make an impact on me or those that I love and I want to know who they are.
That is why I am learning more about the author of Brokeback Mountain.
Visit annieproulx.com - author Annie Proulx’s official homepage
After reading Annie’s bio it is evident that she is a good writer. It is very interesting that as a part of her bio she includes everything notable in her lineage from before 1812 to now. That’s not a bad thing for a historian, just not the typical thing I have seen in professional bio’s.
She is very creative and sensory. On an artistic level, this is probably why Ang Lee was attracted to her work. Both are very big into epic scenery and incorporating that scenery into a story as if it, the setting/scenery, in and of itself is a character.
In the FAQ on her site she lists the following question and answer.
How did you reach deep understanding of the inner characters Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar? Are Jack and Ennis based on real people you know?
… observation, but also this writer’s main card - imagination. Jack and Ennis are purely imaginary and have no connection to anyone I know. The work of imagining, thinking, picturing, describing how things would have been for two 19-year old rough, uneducated young men in 1963 Wyoming was slow, difficult and arduous.
The author is very candid about her personal feelings and family. Annie reveals herself in a personal way all throughout her website. Her family has a strong sense of creativity on the matriarchal front and the men are somewhat one dimensional. Annie shares in her own biography that after three failed marriages, and 5 children later she realized something.
It gradually dawned on me that I am not well-suited for marriage.
Given my own personal bias about the above debate, the following statement is what leads me to think that Annie would be a good example of an author who does interject themselves into their work on some level even if they don’t realize it on a conscious level.
Interview with Annie Proulx (The Missouri Review, vol XXII, No. 2, 1999). * There is one lie in this interview where I said I had never fallen in love with any of my characters. I think I did fall in love with both Jack and Ennis, or some other strong feeling of connection which has persisted for the 8 years since the story was written.
Notice that she does not say she was mistaken. She calls it a lie. Then take to account this, from her website About Brokeback Mountain.
How did you feel on first seeing the film?
Knocked for a loop. I had no idea of what to expect as I had had no input into the making of the film beyond some conversation with Diana Ossana and Larry McMurtry when they were writing the screenplay, and a letter to Focus president James Schamus and Ang Lee begging them to keep the language of the story intact. I did not visit the set. I feared the landscape on which the story rests would be lost, that sentimentality would creep in, that explicit sexual content would be watered down. None of that happened. The film is huge and powerful. I may be the first writer in America to have a piece of writing make its way to the screen whole and entire. And, when I saw the film for the first time, I was astonished that the characters of Jack and Ennis came surging into my mind again, for (hence the lie in Missouri Review ) I thought I had successfully banished them over the years. Wrong.
If they are completely fictional characters…why would you feel the need to “banish” them?
I have to see the film in order to test what I am about to state as a hypothesis, but I think the two main characters of Brokeback Mountain are projections of Annie’s own personality. I am not a psychoanalyst nor the son of one. I reserve the right to be wrong but given her passions and own personal and familial conflicts it would be easily understood if the two characters embody projections of her own conflict with love, stability and commitment.
Of course she states that they are complete works of her imagination and that has to account for heavy weight and consideration. Yet this love hate relationship she has with her characters could possibly indicate that she, herself, is personally connected with them on a deeper level.
On one hand, she regards herself as a researcher and world traveler and she is in touch with her humanity and frailty. I believe below the surface there is a defensive detachment from her characters in Brokeback Mountain that she can’t escape. They are “young, uneducated, rough” all attributes I doubt she would own personally. If this is a case of defensive detachment those attributes are threatening to her.
At the same time, from the clips and trailer of the movie, the two men don’t look or act the way true rural men look and act like. While Brokeback Mountain is set in 1963, I have met men from rural areas who struggle with same sex attractions, from all over the country. Yes they have deep emotions and connections (for good and not so good) with other men but they don’t express them like these two characters. From what little I have seen so far, the men in the movie are idealized in a tragic tale, from the feminine perspective, of homoerotic male “love.” I am sure that homosexuality existed in rural America in 1963 but I highly doubt it would find expression in this manner.
After reading her website, I see Annie’s fingerprints everywhere, not true individuation of the characters. Perhaps she made these characters gay men to detach from an inner ambivalence she is projecting through them.
I do plan to see the movie to back up or debunk my hypothesis before it becomes a real “theory.”
* Interview with Annie Proulx (The Missouri Review, vol XXII, No. 2, 1999).
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