God Says No

A Lambda Award Finalist: a black gay man struggles with his marriage, faith, and desires in this "tender, funny tour of a mind struggling to do the right thing" (Steve Martin).

Gary Gray marries his first girlfriend, a fellow student from Central Florida Christian College who loves Disney World as much as he does. They are nineteen, God-fearing, and eager to start a family. But a week before their wedding Gary goes into a rest-stop bathroom and lets something happen.


God Says No is his testimony—the story of a young black Christian struggling with desire and belief, with his love for his wife and his appetite for other men, told in a singular, emotional voice. Driven by desperation and religious visions, the path that Gary takes—from revival meetings to out life in Atlanta to a pray-away-the-gay ministry in Memphis, Tennessee—gives a riveting picture of how a life like his can be lived, and how it can't.

A Stonewall Book Award Pick 2010

Finalist for the 2009 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Debut Fiction
"A revelatory and sympathetic guide to a misunderstood world." —Steve Martin, author of Shopgirl and Born Standing Up