[1] It tells of his 15-year love affair with John Caleo, which started when they met in the mid-1970s at Xavier College, an all-boys Jesuit Catholic school in Melbourne, and follows their relationship through the 1990s when they both developed AIDS.

[1] The book, which won the 1995 Human Rights Award for Non-Fiction,[2] has been adapted as a play,[3] a docudrama,[4] and in 2015 a film starring Ryan Corr, Craig Stott, Anthony La Paglia, Geoffrey Rush and Guy Pearce.

Several years later, on his first day at Xavier College (the Jesuit senior school), Conigrave sees John Caleo for the first time.

The two graduate from high school in 1977, Tim attending Monash University and John studying to be a chiropractor at College.

Despite parental opposition, Conigrave's eventual move to Sydney in order to attend NIDA, and youthful experimentation and infidelities, the relationship continues.

A month later, on Australia Day 1992, he dies of an AIDS-related illness, with his lover by his side, gently stroking his hair.

[10] The book was published in Spanish in 2002 under the title Amando En Tiempos De Silencio (Loving in the Days of Silence).

The United States and Canadian edition of Holding the Man (with an afterword by Tommy Murphy) was released in September 2007 by Cuttyhunk Books, Boston, Massachusetts.