An Honest Life

An Honest Life is a poignant memoir – much more than a gay coming-out story. With searing honesty the author tries to discover why he first resisted a call to ordination and denied his repressed sexuality. He examines the unconscious defences and cultural pressures which kept him in a heterosexual marriage, and condemns the intolerance and hypocrisy he encountered within the established church, while applauding the support he received from some bishops. The book is enriched by personal stories, contributions from other protagonists, and by the author drawing on a literary reservoir of fellow pilgrims' journeys of faith and evolutionary growth towards integrity over sexual identity. Most movingly, Geoffrey Hooper tells of the joy he personally experienced when 'the love that dare not speak its name' bid him welcome and he did sit and eat.