My final choice is another short-short story, to balance out my two long picks. Residing in its collection just before ‘Brokeback Mountain’, ‘55 Miles to the Gas Pump’ is a snippy reflection on what makes us tell stories in the first place. A grisly murder scene is interrupted before it really gets started, with a chilling quip that functions as something halfway between an explanation and a warning:
“When you live a long way out you make your own fun.”
Published in Close Range: Wyoming Stories by Annie Proulx, Fourth Estate, 1999
A Personal Anthology 