A local author’s work inspires ‘Brokeback Mountain’ production

The producer of “Brokeback Mountain” found inspiration for the film’s cast in a popular 1996 book by Wisconsin writer Will Fellows, which chronicled the lives of gay men in Midwest farm families.

Fellows explored personal stories that spanned most of the twentieth century, an era when homosexuality was widely believed to be a city thing, far removed from rural life. Fellows’ 1996 collection of first-person accounts, “Farm Boys: Lives of Gay Men from the Rural Midwest,” remains the only book about this long-overlooked reality.

As it turns out, the book was suggested reading for the stars of Director Ang Lee’s “Brokeback Mountain.” Co-star Jake Gyllenhaal told Boston’s “In Newsweekly:” “Before we started shooting, Ang Lee and James [Schamus, the producer] gave us books about first-hand accounts of guys growing up in the Midwest and their encounters with men and their attraction to men, and what that was, and even they didn’t understand what it was, or what they were doing.”

“Brokeback Mountain” tells the story of two ranch hands whose conflicted twenty-year relationship begins in 1963, when the young men spend the summer working together. Schamus confirmed through a staff member that “Farm Boys” was used to provide background and other inspiration for “Brokeback Mountain.”

Fellows is impressed the filmmakers cared enough about authenticity to have their actors read “Farm Boys.” Many people have reported feeling deeply touched by the book, which is one of the University of Wisconsin Press‘ best sellers. An elderly man wrote the following to Fellows after reading the book: “On almost every page I found myself thinking, ‘That was me!’ How I wish I could have found a book like this years ago.”

For more information or to request an interview with Will Fellows, call Benson Gardner at (608) 263-0734, publicity@uwpress.wisc.edu.