Pendant or no pendant?
From:
http://www.wyomingnews.com/articles/2007/04/04/news/entertainment/ent0330-02.txt------------------------------------
'Snow Ashes' no companion to 'Brokeback'Alyson Hagy says her forthcoming story of a friendship between two Wyoming sheep ranchers has no correlation to Annie Proulx's story By Karen Cotton
feat2@wyomingnews.com
Alyson Hagy often gets asked if her forthcoming book, "Snow Ashes," is a companion to Annie Proulx's short story, "Brokeback Mountain."
"I started writing this in 1999, and Annie published 'Brokeback' in 1997 in the New Yorker, so this definitely is not a companion," Hagy said.
The question seems relevant as Hagy's book features two male Wyoming sheep ranchers and a love story, but she stresses that her characters aren't gay.
"Snow Ashes" delves into the emotional scars that the Korean War leaves behind and the strained friendship of Fremont Adams and C.D. Hobbs in Baggs, Wyo.
Hobbs falls in love with Adams' manipulative younger sister. Hagy said it's not the best of relationships.
The core of her book is about the responsibilities of friendship over many decades and how that changes.
"I think that's interesting when people remain friends under duress, which requires a real emotional commitment," she said. "Women talk about this stuff all of the time, but we don't talk about how men have the same complicated relationships."
The book follows the men's lives from the time that they're 10 to their mid-60s. It's told in four parts and the setting alternates back and forth between the ranch and Korea.
"I've been interested in writing about sheep ranching because it's essential to the Central part of the state," Hagy said. "It's not the same as the cattle industry, so there won't be any cowboys in the book."
Hagy grew up on a farm in Virginia but has lived in Wyoming for 11 years. She teaches creative writing for the master's of fine arts creative writing program at the University of Wyoming. She also is a Wyoming Arts Council creative writing fellowship recipient.
"Wyoming is appealing to me," Hagy said. "The landscape is extraordinary and ripe with all kinds of stories."
"Snow Ashes" was inspired by a story that Hagy heard at a dinner party.
"It was about an old rancher who had bad things happen to him in his past," she said. "He had created a diorama or miniature stage set to explain to people what had happened to him.
"It was a powerful image," she added.
She knew if she wrote about the story it would be equally as powerful.
Hagy's characters began developing in her mind. She wondered if this man had a friend. If so they probably would have been through the same trauma together, most likely a war.
"If they were older, they would have fought in Korea and not in Vietnam," she said.
Her book is set in 1995 because she wanted to write about that part of the state before it changed from the growing influence of coal-bed methane.
Hagy said the story gave her a chance to explore what it was like to hang onto a way of life - even after one of the main characters failed at ranching.
"Raising sheep is a difficult thing, and the last two decades were difficult," Hagy said.
To include accurate information in her novel about the Korean War and sheep ranching, Hagy did research at UW's American Heritage Center and Coe Library.
She found sheep ranching and Korean War memoirs and other pertinent materials.
Her own father had a best friend who served in the U.S. Marines in the Korean War. She said that had something to do with her interest in the war.
She said in a way her book is a tough sell because it is fiction and she's a woman writing about ranching and military experiences that she's never lived through.
"But you get fictional characters in your head and you try to tell the best story that you can," Hagy said.