BECOMING A MAN: Half a Life Story...

BECOMING A MAN: Half a Life Story by Paul Monette (HarperSan Francisco: $12.; 278 pp.). As he nears the end of a life tragically shortened by AIDS, Monette writes with a passion his earlier works lack. Under other circumstances, his autobiography would have been a bland tale of a bright young man attaining the American dream of upward mobility, but the joy of that achievement was curtailed by the emotionally crippling denial of his sexuality. If Monette sometimes seems to embody the self-hatred of the “Boys in the Band” generation of gay men, he redeems himself through rage, declaring, “Every memoir now is a kind of manifesto, as we piece together the tale of the tribe. Our stories have died with us long enough. We mean to leave behind some map, some key, for the gay and lesbian people to follow.” Recipient of both the National Book Award and the Times Book Award.