Garrard a 19 ans lorsque ses parents découvrent son homosexualité. Problème : ce sont des chrétiens ultra-conservateurs. Pour eux, leur fils doit être « guéri ». Garrard est alors conduit dans un centre de « conversion », où des pasteurs le forcent à devenir un autre. Où la Bible fait loi. Où Harry Potter est un livre déviant, où il est interdit d'écouter Beethoven. Là-bas, malgré tout, Garrard trouvera l'amitié et la force d'être lui-même.

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.