Product Description

When Timothy Conigrave falls in love with the captain of the football team, John Caleo, at their Catholic all-boys school in Melbourne, the two embark on a passionate journey of love, betrayal and forgiveness. This bestselling true story is at once sexy, romantic, funny and sad - a masterpiece of authentic emotion that you won't forget.

Now an international hit play by Tommy Murphy (who also wrote the Afterword for the US and Canadian book edition) the stage adaption makes its North American premier at San Francisco's New Conservatory Theatre Center on September 21, 2007, proving that Holding the Man is a book for all readers, for all generations.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #656457 in Books
• Published on: 2007-08-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Review
"A remarkable achievement. With the Rolling Stones, Bryan Ferry, Violent Femmes, and INXS in the background, this memoir of a young man's coming of age at an all-boys Catholic High School is, above all, a stunning and engrossing love story." --Paul Breines, Boston College

"Amazingly more than the sum of its parts, a book to stir you up and knock you around and wring you out." --Peter Robb, Independent Monthly

"Full of candor, passion, and zest for life." --Leslie Cartwright, The Australian

About the Author
Timothy Conigrave was born in 1959 in Melbourne, Australia and educated at Xavier College and Monash University. He trained as an actor at the National Institute of Dramatic Art, graduating in 1984. He appeared in such plays as Brighton Beach Memoirs and As Is. He initiated the project Soft Targets and his other plays include Blitz Kids and Thieving Boy

A film based upon the original book edition of Holding the Man is in development.

Customer Reviews

Holding the Man will Awaken Your Soul
Tim gave this last performance his all. I have not found a book that so accurately describes my experience as a catholic boy coming out of the closet. He puts honest and sincere emotion and truth on paper in such a way that it stirs the very core of my being.

Tim, without shame, provides a look into gay life style, including struggling with sex outside the relationship. As he describes his struggle between loving his partner and searching for "more", i found myself. As he writes his final good bye letter after his lovers death from AIDS, I found myself calling my partner from Iraq, in tears, and making sure that he knew how much I love him.

This book will stir your soul. It will leave you in deep thought and will offer you the chance to shift, to change and to embrace your sexuality. It will help you to understand the importance of intimacy and unconditional love. It will allow your humanness.

Please Read This Book
I found Holding the Man in a little bookshop in Melbourne this March. I had read many "AIDS" memoirs-- including Paul Monette's Borrowed Time: An AIDS Memoir and the very fine Heaven's Coast" A Memoir by Mark Doty and thought there was nothing else to be said on the subject. I was wrong. I cannot say enough good things about this book. It is so well written. In addition to being a poignant account of a beautiful love affair and sad, sad, death in the time of AIDS, it is a quite wonderful account of what it is like to be a gay teen as well. When I finished the book-- and yes, it will make you cry-- I felt an overwhelming sadness that this young man will never write again and that both these young men's lives were snuffed out at such an early age. And I wanted to see John's beautiful eyelashes. [....]

This help me to understand my gay brother
I am a straight man. When my little brother told me he is gay, I started to look for literature to more understand him. This book has definately helped me to see him from different perspective. This book teaches me that he deserves happiness and we have no right whatsoever to judge a person from his sexual preference. Tim and John had very difficult times dealing with their family, and I do not want this happens to my brother. My love for my brother is even stronger after reading this book.