by Paul Monette
First published 2014
Paul Monette opens this collection by asking if life moves too quickly. For the men he writes about, the answer cuts deep. These ten autobiographical essays honor friends and lovers whose lives AIDS cut short. Monette, who won the National Book Award for Becoming a Man, faces death directly in this final self-portrait. He writes about watching people he loved die. He writes about his own approaching death. Each essay becomes a memorial, each memory a way to keep the dead alive on the page. Monette brings both courage and tenderness to these portraits of loss. He refuses to look away from suffering, but he also refuses to let grief have the final word. This collection completes the trilogy that began with Becoming a Man and Borrowed Time. The ebook includes rare photographs and documents from Monette's papers at UCLA.
Genres: essays, grief, 20th-century, autobiography, biography-memoir, 21st-century, lgbt, gay-fiction
Vibes: emotional-atmospheric, intimate, lyrical, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, grief
Period: 20th-Century, 21st-Century
310 pages · Kindle Edition · Open Road Media
Content warnings: death, terminal-illness