Customer Reviews

Becoming a Man: Half a Life Story (Perennial Classics)

5 star:		(36)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I'm a straight girl. I read this book when I was fifteen years old. Paul Monette's story was the most moving, heart-wrenching I have ever read, and his honesty, humanity, and incredible gift of writing made it all the more powerful. Being straight and young and female posed no barier to my empathy for him, or his impact on me. Since reading Becoming a Man, I have dedicated myself to gay rights; I have composed two articles on the topic of homophobia, started a gay-straight alliance at my high school, which is dedicated to the memory of Paul Monette, and become close friends with several gay and lesbian students. Monette's words and stories seeped into me so deeply that they're a part of me, a part of what I do, a part of the way I think and act. I consider him the most influential person to me besides my immediate family and best friends. I ache that I can never meet him and tell him how heroic and nobel I think he was. He is my favorite writer, and my personal hero for combatting oppression, ignorance, disease, and the suffocating trap of the closet, and for refusing to go quietly into the night. I recommend this book to anyone, straight, gay, closeted, young, or dying. No one will read it all the way through without being changed.

Why would a straight woman want to read the memoirs of a gay man, the late Paul Monette who died of AIDS in the '90s? Because all you have to be is human to appreciate the passion and conviction this man brought to his life as he neared the end of it. Monette grew up in the Ivy League albeit deeply closeted. When he finally "came out", it was to discover the love of his life, Roger Horowitz. They spent happy years together until Roger first got AIDS and then Paul got it. Paul took care of Roger while he died from AIDS. His love for Roger is recounted in BORROWED TIME, AN AIDS MEMOIR, also by Monette, which I view as the prequel to this book. With this book, Monette went back to the time before Roger and his coming to terms with the fact that he was a gay man. He spent most of his youth in total denial. Monette was a good writer before he and his longtime companion contracted AIDS but AIDS transformed him and his work to much higher levels of art. This book deservedly won the National Book Award and many people felt, including me, that BORROWED TIME should have won it as well some years earlier.

Like a previous reader, I read an older version of Monette's 'Borrowed Time' and hoped I might one day meet this wonderful man; it wasn't until I saw nfalzone's review here before reading 'Becoming a Man' that I realised Monette has since died. I also cried; Paul Monette really touched something in me and I can only hope that many, many more people will read this book, though I fear he is somewhat preaching to the converted. For those of us with gay family members it is a real eye opener, though I don't know that many parents would be able to handle this book. His story will drag you through so many emotions, not least anger; may Paul Monette rest in peace and may he be an example to us all to speak out, with open hearts and minds.

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.

When I started this book, I was sort of turned off by all the intellectual-allusions but then I was drawn back. I read the rest in a weekend. Effective & honest--essential for gay & straight alike.

When I discovered this On Becoming A Man, I had just ended a relationship. I was very alone in a much lonelier environment. Reading Paul Monette's journey into becoming the man he was sitting there writing this work was tremendously eye opening to me. I bought several copies of this book and gave it to friends. I am still looking for what he described as his "laughing man." At almost the end of the book - he describes how he meet his then love of his life. Those words he wrote describing his feelings were so true. This is one of my favorite if not my most favorite gay work. I identify with him in far too many ways. I am a teacher as he was for a point in his life. He is a writer and I enjoy reading and writing. However - what you will see in this work is the journey a man traveled from his childhood until his adulthood. This is more than just a journey of learning to accept your sexuality. It is far more than that. Accepting your sexuality is just the trimming. He learned to accept himself - himself beyond the homosexual - himself the human being. He came to the realization that he could be a homosexual, a man, a good person, a caring and supportive lover and an outstanding person. All of that and a bag of chips. Keep the tissues handy when you read. And also keep a pen to underline some of his wonderful lines. Give this book to someone you love or should learn to love: first give it to yourself and then give it to someone else.

huwv@aol.com

I read this book three yers ago when puberty hit and have just finished re-reading it, amazed at the prespective and how much better I understand it. Becoming A Man is a culture in itself, juxstposing changing times with the dormancy of loneliness and isolation. Although Monette sometimes becomes a little distracted, he is so brutally honest that I leave this memoir feeling like I better understand myself and what it means to be a young gay man in a world that is often hostile. But also I reached the destination of my own self-acceptance, a process Monette describes in aching intensity: the ambivalence, the self-bruising, and the lonely nights spent waiting for the one who will make it all worthwhile. And while I haven't joined the gay world yet in all its brilliance, I feel fortunate that Monette's memoir will leave me better prepared in the game of self-worth and love. I'd recommend it to any gay teenager discovering themselves and what it means to be gay, happy, and in love.

I think one of the reasons I liked this book as much as I did was because I see so much of my own life in it; and a lot of those feelings I had long since forgotten. The struggle and turmoil he dealt with are chronicled ably. His style is to jump back and forth between past events and current feelings, like the omniscient narrator in a movie would; it is an effective way to comment upon occurrences and enlighten the reader. He also has a take-no-prisoners style of writing (notably on what gay life is like) that may be a little disconcerting to some readers. And on occasion I was impatient with all those pre-gay details and wanted to know what happened after he came out, but the book is really the story of what happened to him before he came out. Overall, a poignant and satisfying read.

I read an older version of Becoming a Man so when I finished I actually thought there was a chance I could meet the author of this wonderful semi-autobiography. Unfortunately, when I read Borrowed Time, I discovered Paul Monette had died of AIDS in 1995. I cried. I had finally found in Becoming a Man someone I felt I could truly empathize with, could truly relate to. While Paul and I come from different stakes, economic backgrounds and generations, his book showed me the similarily of our emotions while making me believe I could lead a fulfilling life as an openly gay man. That was two years ago. I still continue in my struggle today but at least I know I am not alone in my fight. Thank you, Paul.

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.