Held And Free: Coming Out of Your Story - Softcover

Inhaltsangabe

Held And Free has won these prestigious awards: GOLD in Spiritual Leadership for the Living Now Evergreen Book Awards, FINALIST for LGBTQ+ Nonfiction for the 2023 Best Book Awards, and FINALIST for Best Indie Book overall award.

Synopsis: In one moment, author Meagan O’Nan’s life changed. She suddenly found herself an outsider, both to the life she had known and to the life she did not yet know. A gay woman in Mississippi, she had been outed —and she wasn’t ready for it.

Feeling unworthy of the life she had always wanted, Meagan left her home and all that was familiar to her in order to find herself. At rock bottom, she screamed to the Universe, “I want to be loved the way that I love!” It was in this desperate moment that her answer came. It wasn’t what she had expected; it required her to break down all the walls she had built around her heart from her coming out experience. It required her to heal.

The only way for her to be Held And Free was to return to Mississippi and come out of her story.

KIRKUS REVIEW: An engrossing story of love, growth, and changing times.

A gay woman returns to the conservative Mississippi town where she grew up in O’Nan’s heartfelt coming-out memoir.

The author, a life coach and author, begins her narrative in 2004 when, as a student at Mississippi State University in her hometown of Starkville, she was outed as gay by an ex-boyfriend; the revelation shocked her Catholic family and elicited warnings of damnation from friends and her campus Fellowship of Christian Athletes. In turmoil and doubting her faith, O’Nan moved to Florida and then Colorado, weathered a volatile year-long relationship, met her soulmate, Clare, and stayed close to her parents while they struggled to accept her sexual orientation. Yearning for family and authenticity, she moved back to Starkville with Clare and found its Bible Belt culture had grown gay-friendlier in the intervening years. The author debated gay marriage with a Baptist minister on local television, delivered an address for National Coming Out Day, and, in 2018, gave a speech that moved the Starkville City Council to grant the town’s first Pride Parade permit, all with the support and acclaim of neighbors. Along the way, she fully reconciled with her parents, married Clare, and gave birth to a daughter. O’Nan’s story is an illuminating portrait of the evolution of attitudes regarding homosexuality during the 21st century. It’s also a record of her own journey, away from church-instilled feelings of fear, shame, and worthlessness and towards self-acceptance. O’Nan’s prose works in many registers, from passionate intensity (“From the depths of my soul, I screamed out to the Universe: ‘I want to be loved the way that I love!’ ”) to delicate evocations of romance (“The soft crunch of the fresh snow lingered while we remained silent, unsure of what to say next….My right cheek sat next to hers for many moments before they glided past one another and we connected for our first kiss.”) O’Nan’s search for a true home will resonate with readers of all orientations.

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