Paul Monette

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Paul Monette, West of Yesterday, East of Summer

Paul Monette (October 16, 1945, Lawrence, Massachusetts – February 10, 1995, Los Angeles, California) was an American author, poet, and activist best remembered for his essays about gay relationships and later, his battle with AIDS. Monette graduated from Phillips Academy in 1963 and later Yale University in 1967, conflicted about his sexual identity. He moved to Boston, where he taught writing and literature at Milton Academy for a number of years, before moving to West Hollywood, a neighbourhood in Los Angeles which has a large population of gay men, in 1978 with his romantic partner, a lawyer named Roger Horwitz. Monette's most acclaimed book, "Borrowed Time" chronicles Horwitz's fight and eventual death from AIDS. His 1992 memoir, "Becoming a Man: Half a Life Story", won that year's National Book Award in the nonfiction category.

Monette's last years, before his own AIDS-related death, are chronicled in the film named after him,"Paul Monette: On the Brink of Summer's End" by Monte Bramer and Lesli Klainberg. "By the end of his life, Monette had healed most of his psychic wounds, but his rage persisted." [1]

[edit] Works

Monette's best-known works are:

Taking Care of Mrs. Carroll ISBN 0-316-57821-5 (1978)
The Long Shot ISBN 0380768283 (1981)
Borrowed Time: An AIDS Memoir ISBN 0-15-113598-3 (1988)
Love Alone: Eighteen Elegies for Rog (Poetry) ISBN 0-312-01472-4 (1989)
Afterlife ISB0 380-711974 (1990)
Halfway Home ISBD 051758329-1 (1991)
Becoming a Man: Half a Life Story ISBN 0-15-111519-2 (1992), which won the National Book Award
Last Watch of the Night (a collection of essays) ISBN 0-15-600202-7 (1994)
West of Yesterday, East of Summer: New and Selected Poems, 1973-93 ISBN 0-312-13616-1 (1995) (published posthumously)
Sanctuary, A Tale of Life in the Woods, ISBN 0-684-83286-0 (1997) (published posthumously)