Holding the Man

Blurb

Holding the Man is a 1995 memoir by Australian writer, actor, and activist Timothy Conigrave. It was adapted for the stage by Tommy Murphy in 2006. The original production, directed by David Berthold, has become one of the most successful Australian stage productions in recent years, playing in most Australian capital cities and London's West End. Murphy also wrote the script for a 2015 film adaptation, directed by Neil Armfield.
Holding the Man was published in February 1995 by Penguin Books in Australia just a few months after Conigrave's death, and has since been published in Spain and North America. It has been reprinted fourteen times. Holding the Man won the United Nations Human Rights Award for Non-Fiction in 1995 and was listed as one of the "100 Favourite Australian Books" by the Australian Society of Authors for its 40th anniversary in 2003.
Holding the Man tells the story of Tim's life, and centrally of his relationship with his lover of fifteen years, John Caleo. They met in the mid-1970s at Xavier College, an all-boys Jesuit Catholic school in Melbourne.
The term "holding the man" refers to a transgression that incurs a penalty in Australian rules football.