Rent: Becoming a Man: Half a Life Story (Perennial Classics)
By Paul Monette
About Becoming a Man: Half a Life Story (Perennial Classics) - Book Description
Paul Monette first made a name for himself in 1978 with his debut novel, Taking Care of Mrs. Carroll, a comic romp with serious overtones. He established himself as a writer of popular fiction with three more novels before he and his lover were both diagnosed with HIV. In 1988 he wrote On Borrowed Time, a memoir of living with AIDS and of his lover's death. The passion and anger that fueled On Borrowed Time surfaces again in 1992's Becoming a Man: Half a Life Story, his National Book Award-winning autobiography. Although it follows the traditional structure of the autobiography and bildungsroman--early family life, education, reflections on how art influenced the subject's view of life--Becoming a Man also filters Monette's story through two central facts: the closet and AIDS. Monette writes of the pain of being closeted, the effect it had on his writing, and how it shaped (and often destroyed) his relationships. Monette's fear and fury at AIDS and homophobia heighten the same skill and imagination he put into his fiction. This vision--poetic yet highly political, angry yet infused with the love of life--is what transforms Becoming a Man from simple autobiography into an intense record of struggle and salvation. Paul Monette did not lead a life different from many gay men--he struggled courageously with his family, his sexuality, his AIDS diagnosis--but in bearing witness to his and others' pain, he creates a personal testimony that illuminates the darkest corners of our culture even as it finds unexpected reserves of hope.
Becoming a Man: Half a Life Story (Perennial Classics) Reviews by BookSwim Members
If you're reading the book, or would like to do so, know that Mr. Monette does find love, more than once, and that he finds his journey to have been both extraordinary and extraordinarily painful, I believe. Sadly, he is gone now.
Also keep in mind that Mr. Monette lived long before Will & Grace and Latter Days and anything that would counter his impression that the world was out to uncover his homosexuality and that it wasn't the greatest sin/evil that he could have imagined.
In another place and time, I see many parts of myself and my journey in his, although likely drastically less dramatic and with far fewer prep schools involved. (Like none.) His journey provides insight and detail that can assure countless masses that they are not alone and are not unworthy to find happiness and love despite not filling the traditional recipe for heterosexual roles.
SO READ THIS BOOK, and feel his pain. Relish his rich experiences, his amazing writing ability, feel his loss, and relish his ultimate victory, if not victory over AIDS, then the victory of finding love. Not easy reading, but highly recommended.
Monette is a fascinating character - shortly after reading this memoir, I saw the documentary about Monette's life. I have always enjoyed his novels...Taking Care of Mrs Carroll, The Longshot, and Halfway Home. This memoir is not only brilliantly written, it is well-suffused with the authors thoughts about being gay, suffering with HIV, and the experience of being "other."
When Monette passed away, literature lost a bright light.
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| Published | 06/01/1992 |
| Similar Subjects | Biographies & Memoirs, Gay & Lesbian, Health, Mind & Body, Literature & Fiction, Nonfiction |
| Publisher | Harper Perennial Modern Classics |
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| Purchase at | Amazon |
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