Paul Landry Monette (October 16, 1945 – February 10, 1995) was an American author, poet, and activist best known for his essays about gay relationships.
Monette was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, and graduated from Phillips Academy in 1963 and Yale University in 1967. The rigid social confines of his suburban, middle-class upbringing placed Monette in a position where life in the closet seemed to be the only option. For the majority of Monette’s childhood, he felt suffocated and alienated by the strict, religious atmosphere in which he was raised. Monette would later describe this life in the closet as hindering his personal development as a child, as he was forced to deny a part of his identity that was seen as sinful by everyone around him.[2] He described his youth in the closet as an ‘internal exile’, an ‘imprisonment’, and claimed that closeted life equates to ‘the gutting of all our passions till we are a bunch of eunuchs.’[3]
Conflicted about his sexual orientation, he moved to Boston, Massachusetts, where he taught writing and literature at Milton Academy. In 1978 he moved to West Hollywood with his romantic partner, lawyer Roger Horwitz (November 22, 1941 – October 22, 1986). He wrote and published several novels during this time period, starting with Taking Care of Mrs. Carroll in 1978, which featured a gay protagonist.[4] Monette himself later described the books he produced in this time period “glib and silly little novels.”[4] His more serious work came later in his life and was largely driven by his experiences with AIDS.
Books in order of publication:
| The Carpenter at the Asylum: Poems | 1975 |
| Taking Care of Mrs. Carroll | 1978 |
| Nosferatu the Vampire | 1979 |
| The Gold Diggers | 1979 |
| The Long Shot | 1981 |
| No Witnesses: Poems | 1981 |
| Lightfall | 1982 |
| Scarface | 1983 |
| Predator | 1987 |
| Borrowed Time: An AIDS Memoir | 1988 |
| Midnight Run | 1988 |
| Love Alone: Eighteen Elegies for Rog | 1988 |
| Afterlife | 1990 |
| Havana | 1990 |
| Halfway Home | 1991 |
| Becoming a Man: Half a Life Story | 1992 |
| Selections from Borrowed Time: An Aids Memoir | 1992 |
| Last Watch of the Night: Essays Too Personal and Otherwise | 1994 |
| West of Yesterday, East of Summer: New and Selected Poems, 1973-1993 | 1994 |
| The Politics of Silence | 1994 |
| Sanctuary: A Tale of Life in the Woods | 1997 |
| Reflections: The World of Paul Monette | 2017 |
| Pretty Fun Birthday With The Bikers | 2017 |
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