Book Erased: Garrard Conley
The Headlight Review staff recently conducted this interview with best-selling author and Kennesaw State MAPW professor Garrard Conley concerning the banning of his memoir Boy Erased in the state of Texas.
HR: Well, to start, we’d like to know how/when you found out Boy Erased had been placed on a banned list. Did this catch you off guard, or, given the nature of the way things are in America right now, were you more or less anticipating it?
GC: I first learned about Boy Erased’s inclusion on a banned books list from Texas Representative Matt Krause’s office, as part of a Republican-led effort to ban Critical Race Theory (House Bill 3979). The language on the bill is, to put it mildly, highly ironic considering that the language surrounding it sounds like language used against the “snowflake” Left: In the bill, individuals should not feel “discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of the individual’s race or sex.” As usual, bills which attempt to legislate audience reaction/reception can be easily manipulated to censor speech. I was not shocked to see Boy Erased on the list, though I did find it a bit funny, given the fact that the main message in my memoir is one of compassion which, it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to say, stemmed from my understanding of Christ’s life. I apply compassion to my parents, my community, even my counselors who performed conversion therapy on me. But of course, none of these people making banned books lists actually read. They are not interested in context or content; they are interested in cheap signaling.
HR: What do you think you/all writers can do about the ban?
GC: I think the main thing to do is to form ranks around the protection of books which engage with critical race theory and/or depict realistic truths about the founding of this country, i.e. depictions of slavery, etc. We should protect books we agree with and books we do not agree with, but most of all we should not lose sight of the fact that when one of us is attacked on the basis of our identity, all of us are attacked. I’m a fan of coalition building across race, class, gender, sexuality, etc. and feel that this is a moment where we can agree: banning books is never a good thing.
HR: The banning of your book--does this feel like a continuation of overcoming obstacles (from experience to writing to publishing to film) for Boy Erased? Or does this seem like an altogether different matter?
GC: Oh, these people are the same people I’ve been fighting my whole life. They may not all come in the slick form of someone like Mike Pence, who supported conversion therapy and groups which supported conversion therapy, but they use many of the same tactics. I find this banned books list to be incredibly stupid, and I imagine many people do, but incredibly stupid things can also be dangerous, as I’ve learned. Conversion therapy seems like a joke to anyone who hasn’t been involved with it, yet it kills people every year. The important thing is to keep telling our stories, and to unite around the ability to tell stories, even ones we do not agree with. The ACLU (at least as it once existed) understood that free speech requires this. We don’t all have to agree on everything, but we do have to agree on the issue of free speech. Without it, we’ll never learn the true history of anti-Blackness, anti-queerness, anti-women in this country. We may disagree on the theories surrounding these issues, but that’s the whole point of discourse.
HR: These days, what books do you read for inspiration & consolation?
I love reading books with my undergrad Senior Seminar course on Queer Literature. My students and I have a clear favorite, which is Pedro Lemebel’s My Tender Matador, which features a fabulous campy aesthetic that tackles serious subjects with a very queer lens.
HR: Can we ask what you’re working on right now?
I am finishing up a draft of a novel which should be out sometime next year, a story which follows the lives of queer 18th-century characters in colonial New England. I should be turning in this full draft by the end of spring break, around March 11. In fact, I just confirmed this with my editor. Pray for me!
Side note: This book is sure to anger plenty of groups, so who knows, we may be having this conversation again in a few years. 😊