About the Book

“By showing his readers the extraordinary cost of living his secret life as a gay man, Paul Monette reacquaints all of us with our own secrets and the prices they exact.”

--Kathryn Harrison, from her Foreword

A child of the 1950s from a small New England town, “perfect Paul” earns straight A’s and shines in social and literary pursuits, all the while keeping a secret -- from himself and the rest of the world. Struggling to be, or at least to imitate, a straight man, through Ivy League halls of privilege and bohemian travels abroad, loveless intimacy and unrequited passion, Paul Monette was haunted, and finally saved, by a dream of “the thing I’d never even seen: two men in love and laughing.”

Searingly honest, witty, and humane, Becoming a Man is the definitive coming-out story in the classic coming-of-age genre.

PAUL MONETTE (1945-1995) was the author of many books, including seven novels, four volumes of poetry, and several highly praised nonfiction works. In 1992, he received the National Book Award for Becoming a Man. He died of AIDS complications in 1995.

Critical Praise

“Everyone can learn something about courage and self-discovery from Becoming a Man.” — San Francisco Chronicle

“One of the most complex, moral, personal, and political books to have been written about gay life.” — L. A. Weekly

“Beautifully written…a heartfelt illumination of how a gay person overcame the self-reproach that societal condemnation enacts.” — Publishers Weekly

“A poignant, bittersweet memoir….Each stage of [Monette’s] personal journey is described at an intimate, insightful, human level.” — Library Journal

“Monette’s interior life, his ghosts, his turmoil, his final peace -- in Becoming a Man, they have become our literature.” — --David Ebershoff, author of Pasadena and The Danish Girl

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Product Details

• ISBN: 9780060595647
• ISBN 10: 0060595647
• Imprint: Harper Perennial
• On Sale: 05/25/2004
• Trimsize: 5.310 in (w) x 8.000 in (h) x 0.680 in (d)
• Pages: 304
• List Price: $14.99
• BISAC1 : PSYCHOLOGY / Human Sexuality
• BISAC2 : BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / General
• BISAC3 : SOCIAL SCIENCE / LGBT Studies / Gay Studies
• BISAC4 : SOCIAL SCIENCE / Gender Studies