Boy erased : a memoir
(Book)

As a young man Garrard 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. 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. He was supposed to emerge heterosexual, ex-gay, cleansed of impure urges and, because of his brush with sin, stronger in his faith in God. Instead, when faced with a harrowing and brutal journey, Garrard found the strength and understanding to survive and step out from a life in shadow and to search for his true self, empathy and forgiveness. At time heartbreaking, at times triumphant, this memoir is a testament to love-of family, faith, and community-that survives despite all odds.