PAUL MONETTE AUTHOR ROGER HORWITZ LAWYER

Creative artists who have dealt with AIDS in their work include composers, painters, photographers, and writers. Among the most prominent writers on the subject, Paul Monette (left) first achieved fame with Borrowed Time (1988), an account of the death of his lover Roger Horwitz (right) from AIDS-related infections.

Born October 16, 1945, Paul Monette grew up in Andover, Massachusetts, and attended school there before going on to Yale. After graduating from college he taught in several New England prep schools and wrote poetry while trying to come to terms with his homosexuality. In Boston in September 1974 he met Roger Horwitz, a thirty-two-year-old lawyer from Chicago, who became his lover. Together in 1975 they moved to Los Angeles, where Horwitz practiced law and Monette established himself as a writer.

Monette wrote volumes of poetry, such as The Carpenter at the Asylum (1975) and No Witnesses (1981), as well as novels, including Taking Care of Mrs. Carroll (1978), The Gold Diggers (1979), and Lightfall (1982). He also wrote novelizations of the films Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979) and Scarface (1983).

Horwitz was diagnosed with AIDS in 1985 and died in October 1986. Borrowed Time is Monette's moving account of his lover's last 19 months. Critics described it as "a book of terrible beauty" and "among the finest works generated by the AIDS epidemic." Also diagnosed with HIV himself in 1986, Monette continued to work. His memoir Becoming a Man: Half a Life Story won the 1992 National Book Award for nonfiction. In rapidly deteriorating health, he said that writing the book was what had kept him alive. Next Card 37: Rudolf Nureyev: Ballet Dancer, Choreographer AIDS AWARENESS: PEOPLE WITH AIDS

PAUL MONETTE/ROGER HORWITZ