AFTER THIS

A deeply religious couple cope with their son coming out as gay.

In this slim autobiographical book, Cliff Self (Man UP, 2009), a father and former fundamentalist Christian pastor, recounts living a normal, contented life when his son one day confronted him and his wife with a shocking revelation: He was gay. The author makes the tricky but ultimately successful narrative decision to tell the story from three points of view, including his wife, debut author Darlene Self, and his son, debut author Scott Self. Scott’s own memories of growing up a deeply closeted and even self-denying young gay man are the book’s most involving segments (“I truly believe growing up in the nineties was a blessing beyond compare, no social media, no cell phones and no Wi-Fi,” he writes at one point. “They were the last of low-tech glory days and a perfect hiding place for a blossoming gay boy like myself”). But Cliff and Darlene’s recollections are likewise very moving. (At one point after the disclosure, Darlene stresses: “Above all, I did not want Scott to disappear from my world through all his hurt and pain.”) The sections narrated by Scott take readers through his deepening discovery of his own sexuality as well as his mounting struggles with drug addiction and the long, slow process of recovery and acceptance. Cliff’s own reflections on that experience cause the book’s biggest problems. He stresses that the “overriding message of Jesus is love,” which is admirable, but he also writes that he was “unable to find any clearly stated directive in the Bible to restrict or ostracize gay people.” Since Romans 1:26-27 is widely interpreted as a clear biblical instruction to shun gay individuals, this passage receives a significant amount of special attention and pleading on Cliff’s part. (He eventually settles on controversially asserting that St. Paul is “writing about the Gentile people who did not honor God but worshipped God’s creation.”) Still, these minor fumbles at justifying gay acceptance are outweighed by the work’s strong message of family love conquering all obstacles.

A moving and multivoiced account of a fundamentalist Christian family embracing a gay son.