[.ca] Becoming a Man: Half a Life Story (ISBN 0060595647)

From Amazon.com:
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.

Proud and also ashamed:
This novel represents a lot of things to a lot of different people, who relate to it on different levels. I myself relate to it in a number of ways -- as a great autobiography, an extended coming-of-age tale, a look into the gay past -- but I think for me one of the most special aspects is that Paul Monette and I grew up in the same home town. Andover, Massachusetts, plays a prominent role in this book and as a resident, I got chills during certain parts, times when I could see and feel the scenes he was describing all so well. The old crumbling cemeteries, the staid wooden Colonial homes with their old money residents, the men at the Andover Spa -- all of it's there. Of course, Paul Monette grew up in Andover long before my time, but it hasn't changed so much. Besides, it's the pain I could relate to. If there is any reservation I hold about this book, it's the fact that at certain points in the book, Paul Monette implies that certain cruelties he encountered in his life were directly caused by being gay. It seems to me (and my brother also, who also read it) that some of the things he describes have more to do with being sensitive or being a geek or not being rich enough for the crowd, than they do with being gay per se. I think there are guys who went through a lot of what he did only they weren't gay. Growing up in certain envrionment with certain personalities is painful whether you're gay or straight. I'm not saying it wasn't a factor, just that it seemed a few times the author was blaming everything on that.

Brilliantly Written but Disingenuous:
Born in 1945 to a small-town, middle-class New England family, Paul Monette--like most Americans of the era--was spoon-fed a negative knee-jerk re homosexuality. When he himself began to realize that his own sexuality was at odds with society's dictums he entered two decades of struggle: first a struggle to at least give the appearance of conformity, then a struggle to step beyond the status quo itself. And BECOMING A MAN is a very powerful testament of that struggle, of the price paid, of the self-destructive behavior that the false conformity of "being in the closet" inevitably produces. It is extremely difficult to read BECOMING A MAN without sharing the sense of fury and bitterness that Monette felt when he contemplates his life, and if ever there were an argument in favor of sexual honesty, this is it: the language, an artful mix of the literary and the hardbitten, is remarkable, and Monette pulls no punches when it comes to detailing the fear that drove him. Truly, the book deserves every accolade heaped upon it. All the same, it is a remarkably disingenuous memoir. Even as Monette displays a justifiable loathing for the social institutions that buried him alive for some three decades, he tends to disregard a basic point: he was in many ways a remarkably privileged individual who actually fed upon those same institutions, having a host of opportunities that few people--gay or straight--ever have. It was his own determination to place social advantage above personal integrity that led to his decision to remain in the closet in the first place. True, Monette (who died of AIDS not long after this book was published) was born and came of age in an era that had little tolerance for anything beyond the status quo. But Monette presents being in the closet as something forced upon him by external forces--and this is not strictly true. There was a choice, and bitter though it was for him and the many others who made it, being in the closet was actually the path of least resistance at the time. To pretend that it was otherwise does a tremendous disservice to those of his generation who found the courage to select an even more difficult road of sexual honesty. GFT, Amazon Reviewer

Boring:
In one word - boring. I stuck with this book and found the outcome uninteresting.

An Inspiring Glimpse into the Closet:
Beautifully written and terribly personal, Becoming a Man has achieved what every memoir hopes to: a painful reminiscence of the past with thought-provoking reflections on the changes that have occurred. People of all background and sexuality will enjoy this book and appreciate it as the work of art it is.

Almost Too Close for Comfort:
I bought this book both because it was a coming out story and because of the National Book Award. I knew it would be a good read but had no idea of the power and sheer force of personality that would come through in Paul Monette's writing. As a gay man who also grew up in New England with parents of mixed religion, (although my father converted to Catholism) my experiences were so similar to Paul's that there were times I literally had to put the book down because my emotions were too much to bear. The pain, the loneliness, the self-loathing are all too familiar to any gay person, but this is by no means a book only for gays. Any straight person who knows and loves a gay person will find no better description of what it is to grow up knowing you are that THING that is to be hated and feared, and how hard it is to overcome those early lessons. But be warned, at no point does he "sanitize" the gay experience so as not to offend straights. I was saddened to learn Paul lost his battle with AIDS, and at a time when new treatments were so close. However, any writer who has to die too young could leave no better legacy than this memoir. It will live on long after Paul; it is a truly brilliant book.