Last Watch of the Night: Essays Too Personal and Otherwise [Paperback]

Paul Monette (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 15, 1995

With Borrowed Time and Becoming a Man-the 1992 National Book Award winner for nonfiction-this collection completes Paul Monette’s autobiographical writing. Brimming with outrage yet tender, this is a “remarkable book” (Philadelphia Inquirer).

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this collection of essays, gay activist Monette, winner of the 1992 National Book Award for Becoming a Man, addresses politics, religion, and AIDS.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

National Book Award winner Monette provides his third autobiographical installment of life with AIDS and in the gay rights movement. Following his poignant Borrowed Time (LJ 8/88) and the much-heralded Becoming a Man: Half a Life Story (LJ 5/1/92), this book opens the remaining chapters of Monette's life album for all to read. In a collection of ten essays, Monnette writes passionately of life with lovers Roger and Steve, his grief over their early deaths from AIDS, the moral imperative of libraries to actively combat forces of censorship, and the anguish and anger caused by the AIDS holocaust. Reflecting upon his life, Monette poignantly confesses "I know why I've been pulling out the scrapbooks these last weeks, because the journey has suddenly stalled. The road doesn't go any further, the bridges are all washed out, or maybe I've just gone overboard in a squall." Certainly another award winner for Monette, this is a meritorious selection for all libraries.
--Michael A. Lutes, Univ. of Notre Dame Lib., Ind.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books (April 15, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0156002027
• ISBN-13: 978-0156002028
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #952,618 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Magnificent and moving, June 24, 2002

By 

Wendy C. Darling (Atlanta, GA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Last Watch of the Night: Essays Too Personal and Otherwise (Paperback)

This books represents one of the finest collections of essays I have ever read. Incredibly moving and filled with the intense passion of a man dying and yet gripped by life, this book has blown me away every time I've read it -- and that's been several times. I'm not sure which essay I like best but at the moment "My Priests" stands out, as it certainly ties in to certain news regarding the Catholic clergy. I wonder what Paul Monette would have had to say about it. Absolutely a must read for anyone with a feeling heart.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Easily Monette's best book, September 25, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Last Watch of the Night: Essays Too Personal and Otherwise (Paperback)

"Last Watch of the Night" gets unjustly forgotten in the light of Monette's more famous "Borrowed Time" and "Becoming a Man," but this collection of essays is a better book than either of them. This is what should have been up for the National Book Award, not "Becoming a Man."

The flaws in the book: some of the essays, especially near the end, seem to drift, and are not particularly engaging. These include the soporific "Sleeping Under a Tree." Also, Monette's observations about graves of famous people in "3275" are not even close to as important and insightful as his look at his lovers' and friends' plots.

However, the majority of the book shines true. Alternately bitter, angry, hopeful, and amazed, Monette's words have tremendous emotional force. He is at his best in "The Politics of Silence" and "My Priests," sometimes combining all these emotions in a single paragraph. He sees the dying all around, but can still find glimmers of hope in the conduct of those fighting AIDS. His depictions of the "last watch of the night," where he cares for his sick lover, are heart-breaking.

Although Monette does tend to go off on rages or streaks of uncontained sentimentality, something which marred some otherwise stellar poetry in his book "Love Alone," most often he controls his use of language to the extent where he is able to use forceful emotional passages without drowning his readers. He does this especially well in his essay about his lover's dog, "Puck."

"Last Watch of the Night" stands with his volume of poetry, "Love Alone" and non-fiction, "Borrowed Time," as essential texts of both Paul Monette and the AIDS crisis.

5.0 out of 5 stars forceful and educated mind, May 28, 2008

By 

Binh H. Nguyen "rawr!" (NY, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Last Watch of the Night: Essays Too Personal and Otherwise (Paperback)

[...] I recall being warmly introduced by a senior professor during that first cold semester to the Greeks. Among them, to Antigone, whose womanly defiance and conscience upset the tyrannical edict of Creon the king. She chose to bury her dead brother despite the injunction of the state, fully accepting her dim fate. The writer Paul Monette, in his essay "The Politics of Silence," recalls the words of the Chorus as Antigone goes to her death: Isn't man wonderful? He longed so much to speak his heart that he taught himself language, so that what was inside him could be spoken to the world. Monette's admiration of Antigone's courage is matched by his own brave belief in the Word--an inextricable link between language and power [...] --from "Recollections"