By now, many of you have heard of Timothy Kurek, the former Liberty University student who decided to out himself to friends and family and church. Kurek is straight, by the way, but he wanted to spend a year "in the shoes" of LGBT folks after a friend was kicked out of her house for confessing to her parents that she was a lesbian. He enlisted the help of a couple friends, including a faux boyfriend, and an aunt. No one else knew his confession was a sham. Since the release of his book, The Cross in the Closet,he's been written up in The Guardian and featured on ABC News.
Kurek's story is genuinely compelling, and readers (well, most, but more on that later) will tend to root for him. The Guardian talks about a book in the tradition of Black Like Me, and that's probably going too far unless they simply meant it's a memoir about living like "the other." There are some flaws in this book, and it seems some editing would have helped tremendously. 300+ pages simply weren't necessary to tell the story. There is so much anguished hand-wringing and theologizing that I found it difficult to endure in parts. As a reader, I wanted to hear about the interactions with his new world and the responses from the denizens of his old world more than I wanted to hear his ofttimes excruciating inner monlogue. To be fair, there are times that his interior conversation is excellent. For example...
There is a scene in the book where Kurek enters a gay dance club for the first time. He is set upon by a shirtless man with glittered torso who drags him on the dance floor and proceeds to dirty dance with him. Kurek is mortified to the point he shames the man. His inner monlogue at that point is outstanding.
Finally he looks down, and I take the brief moment to run from the club. I am overcome with regret, and as I walk to my car I resolve to change. If I am going to do this, to really do this, I cannot merely mask the judgment inside of me—I will have to leave it at the door. I will save the judgment for myself, and try from now on to meet these people on their turf, with an open mind and heart. --pg. 37
Here he gets to the issue quickly, without excess words. His insight about going beyond "masking judgment" is helpful to writer and reader alike. I wanted more of that sort of concise insight, not paragraphs of "how I let my judgment go and learned to love gay people."
He also makes use of an externalized metaphor, and this not being an episode of "Scrubs," I found it more annoying than helpful. He sees his internal Pharisee sitting next to him, and he engages the Pharisee in dialog or they exchange barbs, mockery, etc., throughout the book. I'd compare it to Dexter and his dad or brother, but those guys were dead. The problem isn't just the externalized metaphor; it's that he's already writing pages and pages of internal dialog about his struggle, and then he adds his conversations with the Pharisee, which are, well, internal dialogs, thereby extending the amount of anguished hand-wringing.
Last criticism. (I think.) Audience. I always wonder whom Christian authors are addressing. Ingrained in them is this notion that all books must be at least partly evangelistic, even novels, which, as we've all experienced, leads to shitty novels. Kurek writes as if he's addressing fellow Christians who don't fully understand the experience of the LGBT community vis-a-vis their interactions with fundangelicals. It's a noble cause, and I say that with no sarcasm. However, if Kurek wants his fellow Liberty-ites and his Nashville Baptists to hear what he's saying, suggesting "Your god is a dick," is probably going to lead to the closing of the book, (I did completely agree with the sentiment in the context, but I'm not a Christian.) if they even get past his first two uses of "bullshit." Profanity as indicator of hip, understanding Christianity is a bad idea if one wants to reach conservative Christians. (It's virtually the same impulse that leads Kurek and others to mention beers by name in their stories. Just say, "I drank a beer." If you mean to indicate a Portlandesque liberal, say, "I drank a microbrew." That will suffice. Hipsterisms are the death of good writing.)
Those are the main criticisms, and a couple are just minor grievances. Overall, the story is compelling, the characters well-drawn, and the encounters richly narrated. I did think calling Westboro Baptist members Christians stretches the defintion far beyond the breaking point, but Kurek was attempting to eschew judgment and make a bigger tent, for which he should also be commended. The sections where he deals with his mother are genuinely moving, especially when he reads her journal and discovers what she's not saying aloud. Ultimately, Kurek maintains his commitment to evangelical Christianity, but he allows that LGBT deserve equal rights and are committed to God in ways fundangelicals refuse to understand. Many of us who already believed that (or believed it didn't matter because of our atheologies) welcome him to the light. I hope the book allows both LGBT folks insights into the interior working of theological deconstruction (something the character Will does very well in the book), as well as affords fundangelicals the opportunity to see the damage they've done to the LGBT community.
Disclosure Notice: I received a free, electronic copy of the book from Speakeasy in exchange for this review.
Hmm. I've been curious about this book. Mostly, I wondered if the author dealt with the whole "lying to the LGBT community for a year" aspect of it, and whether that ultimately felt like a caring action from their point of view. Was that addressed at all?
Posted by: Matt Mikalatos | October 16, 2012 at 07:41 PM
Matt, yes, he does, at length. He takes the fake boyfriend to minimize romantic damage to others, and then he is very straightforward about his fears about hurting the ones he lies to. Some are upset when he comes clean, but most believe he did the right thing and are forgiving. It would be hard to be mad at someone for long who had tried his best to understand your pain, I suppose.
Posted by: Greg Horton | October 16, 2012 at 10:01 PM
I hadn't heard of this book until you posted about this on FB a little while back (pre-review I think), but I had the same question Matt did. Tragic that a culture could be so insular that the only way to connect deeply with those outside it is to lie.
Posted by: Leighton | October 16, 2012 at 11:46 PM
RE: Beer comment. I wrote this in a review of Marcus Borg's stab at fiction (Putting Away Childish Things, 2010): One does not "order a Guinness" and then "take another sip of their Guinness" and then "take a long draw of Guinness." It's beer. Call it a beer, damn it! Incidentally, if you want to make yourself sound interesting, at least have the decency to pick a better beer. Something local for godsakes. Ironically, most liberal folks know this already."
Borg's fiction writing is painful.
Posted by: Phil | October 17, 2012 at 08:53 AM
Much of my youth was spent drinking and dancing in gay bars. The music was better and I got to lead when the two-steps were good. I swear, though, in all that time, I don't believe I ever, ever saw anyone (assuming that the drinkers are either gay or are at ease with the gay bar culture) order a Guinness in a gay bar. Not done. Well, East Coast Not Done. Can't speak for the world, but I would hazard that eyebrows were raised right there.
I would love to have seen that bartender's face.
And by all means, just call the damn stuff "beer." Sheesh.
Posted by: Leslie | October 17, 2012 at 10:00 PM
So I just reread your post and am curious about this part:
The sections where he deals with his mother are genuinely moving, especially when he reads her journal and discovers what she's not saying aloud.
Did she give him permission to read her journal, either directly or by some obscure method like "accidentally" leaving it open on his desk?
Posted by: Leighton | October 18, 2012 at 01:52 PM
Leighton, he called it snooping. I honestly can't remember if it was in the book or just in the promo/interview material I had to read too.
Posted by: Greg Horton | October 18, 2012 at 05:23 PM
Thanks. That seems like a really shady and manipulative thing to do. I'm starting to like this project less and less.
Posted by: Leighton | October 18, 2012 at 05:27 PM