This is a book to carry with you. Unfortunately I did, and lost it. The effort I've put into trying to get another copy is testament to the power and eloquence of the eighteen poems it contains. This work juxtaposes the power of love and the raveges of death with humbling clraity and emotion. I used it to uplift me when I lost faith in life, and inspire me when I lost direction in my work. Mr Monette says in his preface that it was written almost without pause in the months after his lover's death. The immediacy of his grief, the violence in his anger and the vivid importance of his memories take you with terryfying force into those months. And when you are there, you cannot help but feel the anger and injustice and, overwhelmingly, feel the love that he and Roger shared. I sound sycophantic. I know. But this book puts me in a difficult position becuse it is truly how I feel. When promised love goes wrong, I read these poems, always alone and late at night. When I can't remember why I spend my days thinking up ways to stop more gay men becomming infected with HIV, I read these poems to remind me what happens when people are ignored. I'm hoping a copy can be found to replace the one I lost.

Many of the poems in this book are (by nature of their topic) full of feeling to the point where any gay man will be brought to tears. Monette's poems have powerful imagery and a lyrical quality like that of dreams and nightmares.

The "Elegies for Rog" were written during the death and dying of Monette's partner during his bout with AIDS and will serve as comfort and empowerment to anyone in the face of despair.

After having fallen in love with Monette's poetry, I later came across his autobiography, "Becoming a Man : Half a Life Story." It brings out topics prevalent in homosexuality and coming of age which are too often supressed by the mistakenly common 'gay lifestyle.'

As a poet, I highly recommend both of these books.

Like its prequel "Becoming a Man", Paul Monette's Borrowed Time is exceptionally well-written, and together they form one of the most important autobiographies our times. Borrowed Time, the story of Paul Monette's and his partner Roger Horowitz's struggle with AIDS, is sometimes emotionally too hard to go on reading, but at the same time too engaging to put down. While reading it I literaly had those feelings. If Becoming a Man is the ultimate growing up/coming out story, then Borrowed Time is the ultimate AIDS story. Together they tell the story of gay life in our times better than any other book I read.

I had to take two days off from work when I started this book because I just couldnt make myself put it down.

Paul (I write in Frankness because by the end of the book all the charecters become like Family) writes with such simplicity and command that one feels like sitting by a campside listening to a wise man tell a heart wrenching tale.

Moreover, one thing i really admired about monette was that he doesnt try to gain sympathy by cashing in on his life. He doesnt use over dramatization as tools of deploying tears!

I really loved the ending because it brought such a fatal blow and with so little effort that the readers themselves had to grieve.

Furthermore, I learnt a wealth of information about HIV and AIDS from this book. Plus I just couldnt believe the red-tapism in the USA medical system. It really made me angry.

Read this book , Pronto!!
May Paul and his lover rest in peace!!

Paul Monette in this book describes in harrowing detail the final months in the life of his lover Roger, and how Roger's deterioration affected both men and their relationship. The depth of feeling Monette conveys is remarkable; he writes with a candor and a beauty that bring tears to your eyes. We share Monette's sense of pain and loss. If you've ever known anyone with a terminal illness, this book is devastating, and even if you haven't, there's no way you can remain unmoved.

People sometimes ask how it felt to be a gay man in the 1980s while the spread of AIDS was running unchecked. This powerful book gives the best answer I can imagine.

"Last Watch of the Night" gets unjustly forgotten in the light of Monette's more famous "Borrowed Time" and "Becoming a Man," but this collection of essays is a better book than either of them. This is what should have been up for the National Book Award, not "Becoming a Man."

The flaws in the book: some of the essays, especially near the end, seem to drift, and are not particularly engaging. These include the soporific "Sleeping Under a Tree." Also, Monette's observations about graves of famous people in "3275" are not even close to as important and insightful as his look at his lovers' and friends' plots.

However, the majority of the book shines true. Alternately bitter, angry, hopeful, and amazed, Monette's words have tremendous emotional force. He is at his best in "The Politics of Silence" and "My Priests," sometimes combining all these emotions in a single paragraph. He sees the dying all around, but can still find glimmers of hope in the conduct of those fighting AIDS. His depictions of the "last watch of the night," where he cares for his sick lover, are heart-breaking.

Although Monette does tend to go off on rages or streaks of uncontained sentimentality, something which marred some otherwise stellar poetry in his book "Love Alone," most often he controls his use of language to the extent where he is able to use forceful emotional passages without drowning his readers. He does this especially well in his essay about his lover's dog, "Puck."

"Last Watch of the Night" stands with his volume of poetry, "Love Alone" and non-fiction, "Borrowed Time," as essential texts of both Paul Monette and the AIDS crisis.

This books represents one of the finest collections of essays I have ever read. Incredibly moving and filled with the intense passion of a man dying and yet gripped by life, this book has blown me away every time I've read it -- and that's been several times. I'm not sure which essay I like best but at the moment "My Priests" stands out, as it certainly ties in to certain news regarding the Catholic clergy. I wonder what Paul Monette would have had to say about it. Absolutely a must read for anyone with a feeling heart.

I recall reading this book during my brief and traumatic service in the Israeli army. In the week it took me to finish it, I was as if transported to another sphere of existence - one in which humanity reigns triumphant. As with his two other autobiographical novels, the reader gains a intimate glimpse of his thoughts and experiences. Undoubtedly, Paul Monette goes to great lengths to condemn the corruption of today's world, but side by side his essays are interwoven with instances of sheer beauty. I think his capacity to love, both his friends and his longtime (or short-time) companions is truly inspirational.

Initially, I thought this was going to be a weepy, grim AIDS-related drama. The big surprise is that it's anything but that. Smoothly written, it vividly captures its Southern California setting and populates it with characters you care for. Heartbreaking and very funny.

I didn't want it to end.

Reading this book humanized gay men for me, in a whole new way. I had many gay friends before, but this was different. It's as if Monette reaches out to his straight brothers and sisters and, while not hiding ANYTHING, makes us understand that there's nothing to be afraid of from gay men, or from art, or even (gasp) gay male artists! We all really want the same things in life; to be reconciled with our families, and to be loved for who we are.

Please read this book. As a love story, and a thriller, it's fantastic.

WOW, I'm seventeen years old now, and I swear, Paul Monette's "Halfway Home" is the first book that touches me to tears. When I bought this book, I thought it would be just an ordinary "gay-story".I started to read without big expectations, hoped that I don't fall asleep(I often become tired while reading boring stories)and the more I was surprised: After four hours of reading without any interuptions I realised that I fell in love with "Halfway Home". I'm deeply impressed how wonderful Paul Monette discribes the growing love between two men, their feelings and their life together. I have not been confrontated with homosexuality or AIDS yet, and so this book opend my eyes. In May 1999 I will pass the matura and for one of my special topics I chose "HIV and AIDS". I love this book!!!!I thank you, PAUL MONETTE for a few lovely, romantic and also sad hours.

Monette says he has a goal when he begins this book. He wants to tell a story that hasn't yet been told, one he wish he could have read when he was younger. He doesn't think the thing will be perfect, but he wants to start so the men after him will have something upon which to build.

I think he fulfills this goal admirably. The book isn't perfect - I found myself at times cringing as this man who says he only wants to be loved fires off extremely hurtful, insensitive and bigoted comments towards men and women of faith, especially Roman Catholics. He admits his prejudice, though, and that's kind of the point of what makes this book flawed but good. It is less artful than it is honest. No matter what his background, any gay man who reads this will probably feel some passages have been plucked from his own interior monologue. So in that way the book is less a piece of art than it is a gift of understanding. His circumstances were about as harsh as they can get. Perhaps if we can read this, straight or not, we can learn from the mistakes of the past and reach the next iteration - where straights don't have to be closed minded bigots and gays don't have to become closed minded bigots in reaction.

Why would a straight woman want to read the memoirs of a gay man, the late Paul Monette who died of AIDS in the '90s? Because all you have to be is human to appreciate the passion and conviction this man brought to his life as he neared the end of it. Monette grew up in the Ivy League albeit deeply closeted. When he finally "came out", it was to discover the love of his life, Roger Horowitz. They spent happy years together until Roger first got AIDS and then Paul got it. Paul took care of Roger while he died from AIDS. His love for Roger is recounted in BORROWED TIME, AN AIDS MEMOIR, also by Monette, which I view as the prequel to this book. With this book, Monette went back to the time before Roger and his coming to terms with the fact that he was a gay man. He spent most of his youth in total denial. Monette was a good writer before he and his longtime companion contracted AIDS but AIDS transformed him and his work to much higher levels of art. This book deservedly won the National Book Award and many people felt, including me, that BORROWED TIME should have won it as well some years earlier.

Each time I pick up this book I feel like I'm reading a letter from a friend. Paul Monette writes like you or I, in his most colourful autobiography, which pulls you in from the outset and doesn't let you go until the end. If you've read Borrowed Time, Monette's simple sentence at the conclusion strikes you with amazing inspiration - "Paul Monette, say hello to the rest of your life" as he meets Roger for the first time, his partner of many years to come. You realise that events that change your whole life can happen in an instant, with no warning.

This is the story of his life up until that moment, filled with honest stories and no apology recollections. For anyone that has ever doubted whether it's worth it, this book is a must. If only for that brief moment at a party that changes the rest of your life, your past was definately worth it.

Read this book!

Monette is eloquent as always. However, the theme is tired, worn out and depressing.

What happens to all those friendships formed among the relatives of the dying in intensive care wards? This excellent novel explores some of the options through believable characters and a thrilling plot. If you've read Borrowed Time -- surely one of the better books I've read -- you should treat yourself to this book. It's much lighter; but Monette's tact doesn't lose its point.

"Afterlife" by Paul Monette struck me in many ways. It made me realize what happens to the living after those we love so much are gone. It is disturbing in an eye-opening way, and as one reviewer stated, revolutionary in its own right.

The characters are well formed, not sterotypical, and show how any human can react to a loss of a loved one to something so meaningless.... Gay or straight in so much of it is not relevant. It more than anything else I have read, shows the devestation and the legacy that AIDS has left behind.

Sanctuary is a political/social/sexual fable that almost succeeds. However, the author doesn't quite have the fable form down - the setting of the scene is too large a portion of the tale and the resolution inserts a new character into the table - a character that is out of place in the otherwise pastoral (more accurately arboreal) setting.

Why do I still give it a 3 stars? Because the text is well written and the kernel of the plot is interesting.

Sanctuary: A Tale of Life in the Woods, is a touching fable about a rabbit and a fox who fall in love at the wrong time. Not only does the woodland creatures think a fox and rabbit should not love each other, they also are repulsed by the fact the two animals are both female.

The sory itself was created from scraps of the author's works, since he died before it's completion. The selling point to this book lies in the gorgeous illustrations. I personally would like to have the cover blown up and framed to hang in my living room. The second selling point of this books is that it teaches children about matters of love that most of the population of North America have deemed as taboo. Overall this is a very decent and useful book in teaching children.

the most important aspect of a tale is its moral lesson: the point here is acceptance. as a gay author monette was interested in helping people in general to understand and accept those of alternative gender/sexuality/health status. he was excrutiatingly honest and allowed the world to know him deeply in his autobiographical texts. in this "lighter" work he brings his lessons of love to the young in the hopes that they might grow up to know compassion and empathy. the lessons are subtle but powerful, and the metaphors and analogies are intelligent: monette does not patronize. i would say the story is appropriate for children and adults, and that its inentions are courageous and focused.

Predator was an excellent movie. Taking what could have been an any day average action sci-fi movie and turning it into an A rate. Unfortunately, the novel does not keep up it's end of the deal. Novelizations are generally supposed to expand on the movie. Going into what the movie cannot explain and answering questions that the movie cannot show. The predator in the book and the predator in the movie are very different. The predator in the book can change shape, control animals, and see from the eyes of any creature it chooses. The book also has much more profanity than the movie, takes all of the humorous one liners from the movie and changes them into weak, boring one liners, and changes the main character Dutch from a cool, hard core guy into a mean, uncaring, almost evil hard core guy that no one really likes. I think it could have been done much better. If you like the movie, you can read the book just to see the differences from the movie, but it's not going to add much new to the experience.

A much more engrossing and captivating story than that contained in the movie of the same name, Predator tells the story of an elite military rescue unit sent into the jungles of South America to rescue American hostages.

After a thrilling and bloody firefight at the enemy base, the men begin their long trip to the helicopter rendevous point. Along the way, they are hunted and killed, one by one, by an unseen creature that uses the jungle to hide. Finally, only one man remains, left to hunt the hunter and free the earth from it's carnage.

The book maintains a nearly impossible breakneck speed from start to finish. Not only is this a finely crafted science fiction story, but it is also a glorious Rambo-style novel full of big guns and even bigger battles. A great and wholly satisfying read.

This "child" doesn't exist; I don't know who wrote this book or why they'd do such a thing, but this publishing house and anyone else who associated themselves with this project should be ashamed of themselves.

I read this book when it first came out. I am a survivor of child abuse, too and found the book too dificult to finish, thinking that it was a true story. Now I find it is a fake. How DARE you fake a story like this! We abuse survivors (and I am in my 40's) have fought long and hard to be believed. Then, someone
writes this. Do you know the harm you do when you write this type of thing??? If you (the author) are a middle-aged woman and have some kind of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, I hope you get help soon. I am infuriated!

Anthony Godby Johnson was one extraordinary youngster and his book reads like an adults. Just wonderful!! He brings to light the devestation of AIDS on not only the family but the victim itself. The boy suffered horrifying abuse, both sexual and physical, from both his parents and the people surrounding them. And yet the book is totally devoid of bitterness. This story is tragic, yet hopeful. I felt strangely sad and happy when I finished the story that I have told all my friends about it and am loaning out my copy! A copy that I will consign to my keeper shelf that is filled with only the truly extaordinary books I have read. I will tell you that few belong to this catagory.