Borrowed Time: A Memoir of Living with AIDS

Robert216: Shattering, engrossing, pointillistic memoir. A glimpse back in time, re-creating the fear and overwhelming terror that was AIDS in the 1980s.

Monette is a brilliant writer. Beyond the evocative and moving depictions of caring for his soulmate, he also offers a glimpse into a world now quite unimaginable except in memoir. By this I mean not only the experiences of a youngish people utterly devastated by a then-incurable disease, but also the erudite world of gay men in the 1980s. Not to generalize too much (there were plenty of airheads then too), but it was more common then for gay men, like Monette and his circle, to pride themselves for their role as culture-bearers, and by that I don't mean "culture" as in Taylor Swift.

It's difficult to describe in full, until you read it, the time capsule this memoir opens up. It's written with a brutal honesty that was rare for a gay memoir of the era, with an unflinching and unapologetic look into the intricacies of gay relationships, which didn't then and don't know automatically play by the same rules as the heterosexual majority.

As someone who was a teenager in 1980s California, and who was tangentially connected...

United States on Oct 25, 2022

Mrs L Lock: I can honestly say I have never read a book like this. This is history, pure and simple, crucial and at times so absorbing that it is difficult to have any distance from the narrative to the slightest degree. The experience of grasping onto every word and trying to savour it,to make it last as if you could somehow will Roger Horwitz to live is something that will stay with me. Undoubtedly the skill of Paul Monette as a writer was a factor in this but the overwhelming nature of the epidemic and the misery it brought to the 'young' of that generation shocks one rigid. If I had a time machine, I would go back to those days and do anything I could to help. All I can do is lament - and quite rightly. A lasting and important testament. Read it, please.

United Kingdom on Nov 20, 2021

pickypicky: What a deeply moving account of the AIDS calamity, especially for those who got sick first when there was no cure and very little support. The author lost his beloved spouse to the disease and wrote a memoir in order to try and go on living after Roger's tragic death in 1986. I'm grateful to Paul Monette for his courage and all the love and TLC he gave Roger during those horrible years. I hope he received love and TLC himself as his own health failed.

Canada on Dec 01, 2020

Ich und Frau Schmidt: This is one of the most emotionally moving books I read.
And it touches me on so many and very different levels.
On the one hand there is the deep love between two partners,
then there is the relationship with friends and relatives,
laterhin you experience the awful suffering of a much beloved partner, what is predetermined and what must be endured. The question is, why to endure it. Could I stand it? The unbearable cruelty of helplessly watching the partner's torture. To know that you will follow him in the same way. How is that to endure? Could I do that. Would I? Would I seek a way out to end all suffering? Or would I fight for every single minute that remains?
And then is there the medical aspect at this time.
So little was known.
There was so little help to alleviate the suffering.

Paul Monette made the final journey with his beloved partner. This book describes his and Roger's pain.
First and foremost it is about the disease of AIDS. However, this biography is parallel to many other infaust prognoses.
And reading about it somehow gives strength and takes the reader by the hand. It enhances perception and changes attitudes in dealing with...

Germany on May 06, 2019

VMJ: How can one review a book so profoundly about love?

If this were a novel, I could gush about the eloquence of the author's prose, the depth of characterisation and the fast paced plot. But this is not a novel; this is the heart breaking story of two men who loved each other as much as is humanly possible.
The agony of watching someone die by inches and the agony of doing the dying are starkly and beautifully described. Even though the outcome was inevitable, I found myself desperately hoping that some kind of miraculous intervention would save the day.

I think that this is probably the bravest book I've ever read. Although it's a no holds barred account of the decimation caused by this terrible disease, it's also, ultimately a love story and one I feel privileged to have read.

United Kingdom on Oct 07, 2018

Zarla: I hardly ever re-read a book, but I've read this memoir four times now and every time it is so hard to believe that Paul Monette is now long dead too, struck down aged 49 in 1996, the very year effective treatment for AIDS was eventually discovered and the dying began to stop.

Borrowed Time is beautifully and carefully written, intimate in every sense, allowing us right over the doorstep of Paul and Roger's white stucco villa on Kings Road in West Hollywood. We sit with the men by the pool as they happily plan an exotic vacation to Egypt and Greece, their dog Puck at their feet. Roger has a cough, but it's only slight - it can't mean anything, surely? They've always been careful, especially since the first reports came out of New York.

Paul met Roger when he was 28. They are soul mates, intellectual, literary men with a shared love for history and mythology. Their friendship group is huge, but two friends already have the virus and it creeps ever closer to them until finally, after a battery of painful tests, Roger is diagnosed with PCP, the terrible AIDS pneumonia.

Roger battles AIDS for 19 months and is one of the first patients to be given the poisoned AZT...

United Kingdom on Oct 08, 2017

T. L. Cooper: I bought Borrowed Time: An AIDS Memoir by Monette because it was recommended by a class on AIDS I was taking as research for a book I'm writing. I thought the book might help me better understand the AIDS patient and even AIDS itself. Monette tells a story that is a heartbreaking mix of love, family, and loss. Not just the loss of his life partner but loss of a way of being in the world. He demonstrates eloquently the devastation fear wreaks when knowledge is minimal while showing the immense power of love to hold people together. At times, Monette's self-deprecation felt a bit too much, but it showed a glimpse into how insecurities can push us to both our best and our worst. He talked with graphic detail about the physical havoc AIDS brought not only to the bodies of those who suffer with it but to the lives and the communities where AIDS became such an accepted part of life that people talked about when instead of if. Monette talks about his and the gay community's resentment of people's ignorance and particularly their determination to remain ignorant. His love for his life partner, Roger Horwitz, is palpable throughout the book. I felt almost like an interloper in their lives...

United States on Jun 16, 2017

MamasGottaRead: This moving memoir that Paul Monette left as a tribute to his long-time partner and dearest friend, Roger Horwitz, was an eye-opening reminder of the tragedy that was the AIDS epidemic of the 1980's. I was stunned at the reality of that time period, having only lived it from our living room couch as our family watched the nightly news, growing up. It was heart-breaking to relive the terrifying moments through the eyes of someone on the frontlines of this unrelenting plague, and disturbing to learn how bigoted so many people can be.

It is always difficult to review a memoir negatively, especially one that is so apparently honest and brave. Couple that with the fact that Paul Monette certainly has a way with words, by trade, and it is even more difficult to state any negativity about the story.

Alas, I must mention a few things that caused me to rate the book only 3 stars:

Firstly, I had great difficulty keeping track of all of the friends that Mr. Monette introduced. Because there is very little opportunity to fully develop characters in a memoir, when such a large number of people are introduced, it is incredibly difficult for the reader to distinguish them. I...

United States on Jun 30, 2015