Monette, Paul

Biography

Paul Landry Monette was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, on October 16, 1945; BA, English, Yale, 1967; taught at Cheshire Academy, Connecticut, 1968-70; taught at Milton Academy, Massachusetts, and Pine Manor College, 1970-76; published first book of poetry, The Looker-on: Fra Angelico, Crucifixion, About 1450 (1973); met Roger Horwitz in 1974 and the two of them moved to Los Angeles, California, 1977; writings include Carpenter at the Asylum (1975), Taking Care of Mrs. Carroll (1978), The Gold Diggers (1979), Long Shot (1981), and No Witnesses (1981); after Horwitz's death in 1986, Monette wrote Love Alone: 18 Elegies for Rog (1988), Borrowed Time: an AIDS Memoir (1988), Afterlife (1990), and Halfway Home (1991); Monette's work, Borrowed Time: an AIDS Memoir, was nominated as best biography for the National Book Critics' Circle Award; Monette wrote of his struggle for identity as a gay man in his book, Becoming a Man: Half a Life Story (1992), which won the National Book Award for nonfiction in 1992; final publications include Last Watch of the Night (1994) and West of Yesterday, East of Summer (1994); he was diagnosed as HIV-positive in 1990 and died of complications from AIDS on February 10, 1995.

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