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Last Watch of the Night: Essays Too Personal and Otherwise (1994)

by Paul Monette

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439356,324 (4.22)6
Tender and passionate autobiographical essays by the National Book Award-winning author of Becoming a Man. "Does it go too fast?" Monette asks about life at the beginning of one piece. The answer is a resounding "yes" for the individuals who populate this stunning work of nonfiction. These ten autobiographical essays memorialize those whose lives have been claimed by AIDS. Following Becoming a Man and Borrowed Time, Last Watch of the Night is Monette's third and final self-portrait. In this collection, he confronts death--those of lovers and friends, and even his own eventual demise--with both bravery and compassion. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Paul Monette including rare images and never-before-seen documents from the Paul Monette papers of the UCLA Library Special Collections.… (more)
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Love the review about censorship particularly . . .
  klandring | Apr 19, 2015 |
A collection of essays written by Monette in '92 and '93, Last Watch of the Night chronicles his thoughts on family, spirituality and the church, health and disease, writing, and AIDS, primarily as connected to being gay in America in the 1970s and 1980s. All personal and heavily anecdotal, the essays veer between being sorrowful, angry, and celebratory, though Monette's sarcastic humor often comes through as well. While a few of the essays come off as being overly self-indulgent, most of them are both thoughtful and entertaining, well worth the time for any interested reader. It's worth noting, also, that readers needn't be familiar with Monette's other works in order to get something out of the collection--most of the references to his own writings are general, his primary focus being on more memoir-and-history based interests.

On the whole, the collection is well worth reading for any interested parties, though perhaps not as historically or personal telling as readers might wish. ( )
2 vote whitewavedarling | Sep 2, 2013 |
Monette writes again in his autobiographical way. But this is not necessarily an autobiography. These are short stories or quips and reflections of his last days before dying of AIDS. I especially enjoyed the stories reminiscing about friends I knew in Los Angeles who had died of AIDS. However, some chapters especially the ones dealing with his activism riled me -- I'm all for activism but did not support the "cross the lines" activism of Act - UP. Skip the one dealing with his insomnia - who cares! Some of his writing his very self-absorbed and he does know how to whine so much that he appears to victimize himself and believe he loves the term "poster boy for AIDS" - don't think so - there have been many courageous people who died of AIDS who did not have the White benefit of Monette. ( )
  latinobookgeek | Mar 20, 2007 |
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Tender and passionate autobiographical essays by the National Book Award-winning author of Becoming a Man. "Does it go too fast?" Monette asks about life at the beginning of one piece. The answer is a resounding "yes" for the individuals who populate this stunning work of nonfiction. These ten autobiographical essays memorialize those whose lives have been claimed by AIDS. Following Becoming a Man and Borrowed Time, Last Watch of the Night is Monette's third and final self-portrait. In this collection, he confronts death--those of lovers and friends, and even his own eventual demise--with both bravery and compassion. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Paul Monette including rare images and never-before-seen documents from the Paul Monette papers of the UCLA Library Special Collections.

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