Gay readers are no less susceptible to it than anyone else. That is the very basis of escapism and wish-fulfilment. There is a clear psychological motive behind “fixing” in works of art the errors we experience in life. Or maybe they do – and more intimately than she realises. “It’s about homophobia it’s about a social situation it’s about a place and a particular mindset and morality.

“ can’t understand that the story isn’t about Jack and Ennis,” she says. It is this which has led readers to propose future partners and a brighter future for Ennis. Her story ends – spoiler alert – with the murder of Jack in a homophobic assault.

The irony is that Proulx comes so very close to identifying a probable cause for the influx of sentimental fan fiction. Likewise, the original story is not diminished by the desire of its readers to supply their own cheery addendums. The virtues of Brokeback Mountain remain constant whether it wins a hundred awards or none at all. Hers is the frustration of the control freak diagnosing unfairness in any outcome not to her liking, be it a wrongly attributed trophy or an unfathomable response. Writing in this newspaper in 2006 shortly after the film failed to win the Best Picture Oscar, she referred to the winning movie, Crash, as “Trash”. It’s true that Proulx has been protective of Brokeback Mountain to the point of intemperance. And one of the reasons we keep the gates locked here is that a lot of men have decided that the story should have had a happy ending … So they rewrite the story … I can’t tell you how many of these things have been sent to me as though they’re expecting me to say, ‘Oh great, if only I’d had the sense to write it that way.’” I think it’s important to leave spaces in a story for readers to fill in from their own experience, but unfortunately the audience that Brokeback reached most strongly have powerful fantasy lives. “It’s just been the cause of hassle and problems and irritation since the film came out … So many people have completely misunderstood the story. “I wish I’d never written the story,” Proulx told the Paris Review.

Brokeback mountain annie