Name: Boy Erased
ISBN: 9780735213463

Garrard Conley

As a young mand Gerrard Conley was terrified and conflicted about his sexuality, growing up the son of a Baptist pastor and deeply embedded in church life in small town Arkansas.

A Memoir of Identity, Faith, and Family

Boy Erased

Ethan Hill

Narratively it’s so disjointed that it’s hard to latch on to any single plot point or relationship. But it’s thematically coherent enough to keep you invested throughout.

Talisa

Jeremy Anderberg

Conley grew up in the south in a Baptist family; his dad ran a car dealership and then at about the age of 50 decided to pursue pastoral work. In the midst of that, Garrard is outed as gay during his time in college and ultimately willingly attends conversion therapy. It does not go well, to say the least.

I saw the movie first (which is great, btw), and there’s obviously overlap with the plot, but the writing here is rather good enough to stand on its own and make it worthwhile. Memoirs are always hit and miss for me, but this one was definitely a winner. Conley’s writing is fluid and graceful (his MFA sure helps) and so much more forgiving than you’d expect given the story.

It's a little long at times (I generally prefer memoirs to be under 300 pages) and occasionally heavy on metaphor (fast food ketchup cups are like a line of rubies under a fluorescent sky). But it's a quick read, so those are easy complaints to move beyond. There are some dark parts, and but Boy Erased ends superbly with a lot of love and hope.

Mal smith

The New York Times bestselling memoir about identity, love and understanding. Now a major motion picture starring Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe, and Lucas Hedges, directed by Joel Edgerton. "Every sentence of the story will stir your soul" (O Magazine). The son of a Baptist pastor and deeply embedded in church life in small town Arkansas, as a young man Garrard Conley was terrified and conflicted about his sexuality. When Garrard was a nineteen-year-old college student, he was outed to his parents, and was forced to make a life-changing decision: either agree to attend a church-supported conversion therapy program that promised to “cure” him of homosexuality; or risk losing family, friends, and the God he had prayed to every day of his life. Through an institutionalized Twelve-Step Program heavy on Bible study, he was supposed to emerge heterosexual, ex-gay, cleansed of impure urges and stronger in his faith in God for his brush with sin. Instead, even when faced with a harrowing and brutal journey, Garrard found the strength and understanding to break out in search of his true self and forgiveness. By confronting his buried past and the burden of a life lived in shadow, Garrard traces the complex relationships among family, faith, and community. At times heart-breaking, at times triumphant, this memoir is a testament to love that survives despite all odds.

A Memoir

Megan Parrott

"A poignant account by a survivor of a church-supported sexual orientation conversion therapy facility that claimed to "cure" homosexuality describes its intense Bible study program and the daily threats of his abandonment by family, friends and God, an experience that transformed the author's relationships and self-understandings, "--NoveList.

Boy Erased A Memoir of Identity, Faith, and Family

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