• Complain

Conley - Boy Erased: a Memoir

Here you can read online Conley - Boy Erased: a Memoir full text of the book (entire story) in english for free. Download pdf and epub, get meaning, cover and reviews about this ebook. City: Place of publication not identified;United States, year: 2016, publisher: Penguin Publishing Group, genre: Detective and thriller. Description of the work, (preface) as well as reviews are available. Best literature library LitArk.com created for fans of good reading and offers a wide selection of genres:

Romance novel Science fiction Adventure Detective Science History Home and family Prose Art Politics Computer Non-fiction Religion Business Children Humor

Choose a favorite category and find really read worthwhile books. Enjoy immersion in the world of imagination, feel the emotions of the characters or learn something new for yourself, make an fascinating discovery.

Conley Boy Erased: a Memoir
  • Book:
    Boy Erased: a Memoir
  • Author:
  • Publisher:
    Penguin Publishing Group
  • Genre:
  • Year:
    2016
  • City:
    Place of publication not identified;United States
  • Rating:
    3 / 5
  • Favourites:
    Add to favourites
  • Your mark:
    • 60
    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

Boy Erased: a Memoir: summary, description and annotation

We offer to read an annotation, description, summary or preface (depends on what the author of the book "Boy Erased: a Memoir" wrote himself). If you haven't found the necessary information about the book — write in the comments, we will try to find it.

The power of Conleys story resides not only in the vividly depicted grotesqueries of the therapy system, but in his lyrical writing about sexuality and love.? Los Angeles Times This brave and bracing memoir is an urgent reminder that America remains a place where queer people have to fight for their lives ... Boy Erased is a necessary, beautiful book.? Garth Greenwell, author of What Belongs to You A beautiful, raw and compassionate memoir about identity, love and understanding. 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.

Conley: author's other books


Who wrote Boy Erased: a Memoir? Find out the surname, the name of the author of the book and a list of all author's works by series.

Boy Erased: a Memoir — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work

Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "Boy Erased: a Memoir" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.

Light

Font size:

Reset

Interval:

Bookmark:

Make
Boy Erased a Memoir - image 1
Boy Erased a Memoir - image 2

Boy Erased a Memoir - image 3

RIVERHEAD BOOKS

An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

375 Hudson Street

New York, New York 10014

Boy Erased a Memoir - image 4

Copyright 2016 by Garrard Conley

Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

eBook ISBN: 9780698155558

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Conley, Garrard.

Boy erased : a memoir / Garrard Conley.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-1-59463-301-0

1. Conley, Garrard. 2. GaysUnited StatesBiography. 3. Sexual reorientation programsUnited States. 4. Ex-gay movementUnited States. 5. GaysIdentity. 6. Gay menUnited States. I. Title.

HQ75.8.C665A3 2016 2015024641

306.76'6092dc23

Penguin is committed to publishing works of quality and integrity. In that spirit, we are proud to offer this book to our readers; however, the story, the experiences, and the words are the authors alone.

Version_1

For my parents

AUTHORS NOTE

During my time at Love in Action (LIA), no journaling, photographing, or any other method of recording was allowed inside the facility. To that effect, all events, physical descriptions, and dialogue have been reconstructed to the best of my ability. My mothers and my memories, LIAs ex-gay handbook, newspaper articles, blog posts, and personal interviews have supplemented the empty spaces where trauma has made dark what was once painfully clear. As in most memoirs, the chronology is accurate, altered only in places where the narrative requires it. I have excluded details that seemed irrelevant to the nature of the story. The names and certain identifying characteristics of some key figures in my life, including Chloe, Brandon, David, Brad, Brother Stevens, and Brother Neilson have been changed.

I wish none of this had ever happened. Sometimes I thank God that it did.

Yet she could see by their shocked and altered faces that even their virtues were being burned away.

F LANNERY OC ONNOR , R EVELATION

If Im looking at that wall and suddenly I say, Its blue, and someone else comes along and says, No, no. Its gold. But I want to believe that that wall is blue. Its blue, its blue, its blue. But then God comes along, and He says, Youre right, John, it is blue. Thats the help I need. God can help me make that wall blue.

E X - GAY LEADER J OHN S MID , IN AN INTERVIEW WITH THE Memphis Flyer

TIMELINE OF THE EX-GAY MOVEMENT

1973

The American Psychological Association declassifies homosexuality as a mental illness.

Love in Action (LIA), a nondenominational fundamentalist Christian organization, rejects APAs decision and opens its doors in San Rafael, California, promising to cure LGBT congregants of their sexual addictions.

1976

The first ex-gay conference takes place in Anaheim, California, where more than sixty-two attendees form what becomes Exodus International, the largest ex-gay umbrella organization in the world. LIA is its flagship program.

1977

Jack McIntyre, a four-year member of LIA, commits suicide, prompting one of the groups founding members, John Evans, to condemn the program. In a suicide note, McIntyre writes: To continually go before God and ask for forgiveness and make promises you know you cant keep is more than I can take.

1982

Exodus Europe, an independent organization working in coalition with Exodus International, holds its first ex-gay conference in the Netherlands. Ministries now exist in Australia, Brazil, and Portugal.

1989

Exodus expands its mission to include the Philippines and Singapore. The organization, which at its peak supported more than two hundred ministries across the United States, has reached mainstream attention, with spots on national television and radio.

1990

John Smid takes over as director of LIA.

1993

John Evans, a cofounder of LIA, writes an article for the Wall Street Journal denouncing ex-gay therapy: Theyre destroying peoples lives. If you dont do their thing, youre not of God, youll go to hell. Theyre living in a fantasy world.

1994

Under John Smids direction, LIA moves its headquarters to Memphis, Tennessee, purchasing five acres of land to house its residential program.

1998

Ex-gay leader John Paulk, soon to be featured on the cover of Newsweek with his ex-lesbian wife, founds Love Won Out, a series of yearly ex-gay conferences.

2000

First Latin American Exodus Conference is held in Quito, Ecuador. Ministries are now in China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Sri Lanka, and Taiwan.

2003

LIA opens its controversial Refuge program, bringing together teenagers and adults suffering from various sex-based addictions.

2004

My ex-gay story begins.

I
MONDAY, JUNE 7, 2004

J ohn Smid stood tall, square shouldered, beaming behind thin wire-rimmed glasses and wearing the khaki slacks and striped button-down that have become standard fatigues for evangelical men across the country. The raised outlines of his undershirt stretched taut beneath his shirt, his graying blond hair tamed by the size-five hair clippers common in Sport Clips throughout the South. The rest of us sat in a semicircle facing him, all dressed according to the program dress code outlined in our 274-page handbooks.

Men: Shirts worn at all times, including periods of sleep. T-shirts without sleeves not permitted, whether worn as outer- or undergarments, including muscle shirts or other tank tops. Facial hair removed seven days weekly. Sideburns never below top of ear.

Women: Bras worn at all times, exceptions during sleep. Skirts must fall at the knee or below. Tank tops allowed only if worn with a blouse. Legs and underarms shaved at least twice weekly.

The first thing you have to do is recognize how youve become dependent on sex, on things that are not from God, Smid said. We were learning Step One of Love in Actions Twelve Step program, a set of principles equating the sins of infidelity, bestiality, pedophilia, and homosexuality to addictive behavior such as alcoholism or gambling: a kind of Alcoholics Anonymous for what counselors referred to as our sexual deviance.

Sitting alone with him just hours before in his office, I had witnessed a different man: a kinder, goofier Smid, a middle-aged class clown willing to resort to any antic to make me smile. He had treated me like a child, and I had relaxed into the role, being nineteen at the time. He told me I had come to the right place, that Love in Action would cure me, lift me out of my sin into the light of Gods glory. His office seemed bright enough to substantiate his claim, the walls bare save for the occasional framed newspaper clipping or embroidered Bible verse. Outside his window was an empty plot of land, rare around this suburban subdivision, an untended grassy mess peppered with neon dandelions and their thousands of seed heads that would scatter across the highway by the end of the week.

Next page
Light

Font size:

Reset

Interval:

Bookmark:

Make

Similar books «Boy Erased: a Memoir»

Look at similar books to Boy Erased: a Memoir. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.


Reviews about «Boy Erased: a Memoir»

Discussion, reviews of the book Boy Erased: a Memoir and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.