Becoming A Man: Half a Life Story

(Paperback)

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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.

Reviews

'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

Author Bio

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.