'All The World Beside' explores a queer relationship in a 1700s Puritan community

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Books, Arts

4.2 • 671 Ratings

🗓️ 11 April 2024

⏱️ 9 minutes

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Summary

Garrard Conley's memoir Boy Erased chronicled his upbringing as a Baptist preacher's son and his experience being sent to conversion therapy. His new novel, All The World Beside, explores similar themes of faith, love and queer identity — but through the lens of a relationship between two men in Puritan New England. In today's episode, Conley speaks with NPR's Ari Shapiro about how fiction allowed him to actually provide even more autobiographical details than a memoir, and how writing this book grounded him in his relationship to Christianity.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's Empire's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. If you're raised deep in a faith tradition,
0:07.7	even if you stop actively practicing when you grow up, a lot of that tends to stick with you.
0:13.0	The author Garrett Conley knows that well. His father is a missionary Baptist preacher who doesn't approve of Connolly being gay to the point that Conley was actually sent to
0:21.8	conversion therapy. Conley has a whole memoir about that experience titled Boy Erased,
0:27.2	but his new book is a novel titled All the World Beside. It takes place in the 1700s and
0:32.5	is very much about the intersection of faith and sexuality. And in this interview with NPR's R. Shapiro, Conley rattles off Bible verses and name-check's
0:41.4	books, but it's not until the end when he really reveals where he's at in his faith journey.
0:47.4	That's ahead.
0:48.9	In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life.
0:53.7	Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors on our new show, Sources and Methods. NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people, helping you understand why distant events matter here at home. Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
1:13.0	The author, Garrett Conley, has spent his life exploring the overlap between Christianity and
1:18.9	sexuality. His bestselling memoir, Boy Erased, was adapted into a 2018 film about undergoing
1:24.4	conversion therapy. I broke up with Chloe.
1:31.0	We broke up because I think it's true about me.
1:32.7	God help me.
1:34.7	I think about men.
1:38.8	His new book comes at similar themes from a very different angle.
1:42.7	All the World Beside is a novel set in the 1700s.
1:46.2	It's a story of forbidden love between two married men in a small Massachusetts town. Garrett Conley, welcome to all things considered. Thanks so much for
1:50.9	having me. The two men at the center of this story, Nathaniel and Arthur, are not just townspeople.
1:55.1	They are pillars of the community. Nathaniel is the minister who founded the town. Arthur is the
1:59.5	doctor. Why did you want to build
	...

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