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 institutionalised 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 heartbreaking at times triumphant this memoir is a testament to love that survives despite all odds.
