Becoming A Man: Half a Life Story

Description

He grew up in a small town in New England in the 1950's, watching lassie, going to church, getting straight A's at school, a scholar destined for success. But he already had a secret, and his public life with family and friends was already a constant round of ventriloquism as he played the joker and pretended to be the same as everyone else. For Paul Monette was gay. BECOMING A MAN is about growing up gay, and about the tyranny and self denial of the closet - one man's struggle, for half his life, to come out. From the white-bread 1950's through the rebellious 1960's to the self-creating 1970's and beyond, it forms a passionately honest and unsparing account of the tortures of living a lie, a naked protrait of one man's fight for freedom in a time of ignorance and bigotry.

Paul Monette was the author of six novels and three colections of poems. Becoming a Man was the 1992 National Book Award for non-fiction. He died in February 1995.

'A profound tale, wrenching as it is life-affirming, poetic as it is uncompromisingly real.' VILLAGE VOICE 'A daring and heartbreaking memoir.' BOSTON GLOBE 'Affirmative and ultimately celebratory.' NEW YORK TIMES 'Everyone can learn about courage and self-discovery from BECOMING A MAN.' SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE 'Both seeringly angry and lyrically beautiful.' ESQUIRE 'This is a fine book.' GAY TIMES 'School and college years- most of the book- are brilliant retolf... his anger is inspiring.' THE TIMES 'Reading Paul Monette's book BECOMING A MAN, Hanks found that "this guy, as an adolescent, went through the exact same things I went through in terms of lonliness and confusion and wonder and non-guidance and all that stuff. Two different end results, yeah, but what does it matter when the human emotions are the same?"' SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE