Description
Paul Landry Monette (1945-1995) was a novelist and poet. He received a best biography nomination from the National Book Critics'
Circle and won the National Book Award for nonfiction in 1992. The collection consists of correspondence, manuscripts, proofs,
notes, screenplays, plays, daybooks, memorabilia, photographs, clippings, and printed material related to Monette's life and
literary career. Also included in the collection are the papers of two of Monette's previous lovers, Roger Horwitz and Stephen
Kolzak.
Background
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. Several printed obituaries and appreciations have been collected in Special Collections URL and can be found in the papers.
Major critical overviews include those in Contemporary Authors: A Bio-Bibliographical Guide to Current Writers in
Fiction, General Nonfiction, Poetry, Journalism, Drama, Motion Pictures, Television, and Other Fields vol. 139, edited by Donna Olendorf. Detroit, Washington, D.C., London: Gale
Research Incorporated, [1993], Gay & Lesbian Literature, edited by Sharon Malinowski. Detroit and London: St. James Press, [1994], and Paul Monette, by David
Roman, in Contemporary Gay American Novelists: A
Bio-bibliographical Critical Sourcebook, edited by Emmanuel S. Nelson, Westport, Connecticut: Greenwod Press, 1994.By Paula Zeszotarski
Restrictions
Restrictions on Use and Reproduction
Property rights to the physical object belong to the UCLA Library, Department of Special Collections. Literary rights, including
copyright, are retained by the creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds
the copyright and pursue the
copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The UC Regents do not hold the copyright.