Boy Erased

“This brave and bracing memoir is an urgent reminder that America remains a place where queer people have to fight for their lives… Equal parts sympathy and rage, Boy Erased is a necessary, beautiful book.” —Garth Greenwell

“Every sentence of the story will stir your soul” —O Magazine

The New York Times bestselling memoir about a young man’s traumatizing experiences in gay conversion therapy, and his journey to overcome shame and embrace his queer identity in the midst of deep-rooted bigotry. The inspiration for the film starring Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe, and Lucas Hedges, directed by Joel Edgerton.

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.