James Hannaham Reads From God Says No

Jun ’09
27
7:00 pm

godsaysno

In God Says No (McSweeneys) by James Hannaham, 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 Gray 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.

James Hannaham has written for the Village Voice, Spin, New York Magazine and once, circa 1997, a tiny sidebar in the front section of the New York Times Magazine. His fiction has appeared in The Literary Review, Nerve.com, Open City, and several anthologies.

For more information about James Hannaham, see www.jameshannaham.com.