Beard: A Memoir of a Marriage

by Kelly Foster Lundquist

“When I tell this story as a joke, I am its punchline. Leaning in close, I might start with this The night before my first husband got outed to me, I was in Chicago’s Boystown neighborhood dressed up as Liza Minnelli for Halloween.”
 
Kelly Foster Lundquist was nineteen when she met Devin at church camp in the late ’90s. Immediately inseparable, the two bonded over bootleg Tori Amos recordings and a sense of disconnection from the spiritual fervor of their fellow camp counselors. Devin was classically handsome and Kelly on the plain side of pretty, but they matched. Their twinned search for God, acceptance, and love would profoundly shape the rest of their lives.
 
In this striking debut memoir, Lundquist revisits her relationship with Devin twenty years after their divorce, as she investigates the “beard” trope in literature, culture, and her own romantic life. The straight woman who unwittingly marries a gay man is either a laughingstock or a fool—or both—in the popular imagination. And yet reality—much like desire—is more wild. Reality is midnight pad Thai, tenderness in Ralph Lauren sheets, ritual visits to Blockbuster, and beginning a PhD in queer theory while your husband secretly struggles to reconcile his double life. 
 
A tour de force of empathy and vivid prose, Beard reckons honestly with the harm done to both husband and wife by churches that required rigid performances of gender and sexuality. In contrast, Lundquist learns to let go of brittle certainties as she embraces what her first marriage taught her about risk and redemption. 

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, LGBT, Queer, Religion, Biography, Marriage

250 pages, Hardcover

Published October 30, 2025

About the author

Kelly Foster Lundquist is the author of Beard: A Memoir of a Marriage, named by SheReads as a Most Anticipated Memoir of Fall 2025 and now a finalist for the 2026 Minnesota Book Award in Memoir and Creative Nonfiction. Her work can be found in People Magazine, the Times of London, the Huffington Post, and Writer’s Digest, among other places. Originally from Mississippi, she now teaches writing in Minnesota. Dan Savage recently told her on the air that she was “absolutely delightful company” and that Beard was an “incredibly moving tour-de-force” and those are both things she likes to brag about now.

Reviews

[Abigail Franklin]

A lot of grace in these pages. The last two lines got me. A great depiction of a story with no hero and no villain but a slew of victims. More than anything, this book made me feel so lucky that I didn’t end up putting someone else through this. There is a (very close) possible universe where I would have been the Devin in someone else’s story, had one or two things in my life gone differently.

[Rebecca]

My Shelf Awareness review: "I've spent a lifetime feeling drawn to gay men," Kelly Foster Lundquist writes in her riveting debut memoir, Beard. Her brother and best friend are gay; she loves musical theater and considers Judy Garland a patron saint. So it's all the more ironic that she didn't realize for years that her first husband was homosexual.

Lundquist met Devin during college, when they were counselors at a Christian summer camp in Mississippi. She knew he'd been bullied in adolescence for being effeminate but only later learned he'd been subjected to counseling that fell just short of conversion therapy. When Lundquist started a PhD, the couple relocated to Chicago--to Boystown, a historically gay neighborhood. Descriptions of food and fashion create a neat context for their early-2000s courtship and marriage. She tracks her disordered eating and Devin's growing alcohol dependency with sensitivity, and she convincingly re-creates her naïve confusion over finding gay images and chat room discussions on their shared computer.

The scenes and dialogue sparkle. That's especially true of the pivotal sequence in which Lundquist dresses as Liza Minnelli for Halloween and, days afterward, the truth emerges about Devin's affairs with men. Lundquist explores the history of the "beard" stereotype common to 1950s Hollywood films and TV sitcoms. The language of deconstruction and queer literary theory, gleaned from her doctoral research, pairs with a newfound affirming theology. With that fresh perspective, Lundquist looks back--two decades on, a remarried English professor and mother--with compassion for her ex-husband as well as her younger self.

(Posted with permission from Shelf Awareness.)

[Nicole]

I'm shopping around a full piece on this and the Jen Hatmaker divorce memoir that's also coming out this fall, and I have lots to say that I won't say yet, but I'm a-buzz with excitement for this one. Stayed up until nearly 2 AM finishing it and keep thinking of more people I'm going to recommend it to. I'm half considering making a trip to Chicago for the release. This is one of the best-written memoirs I've read. Thanks, Eerdmans, for existing to publish stuff like this!

[Ella Hachee]

Love is complicated.

[Anna Rollins]

I’m going to be thinking about this book for a long time. And the scene in the snow, when the narrator moves from rage to acceptance, a knowing that her husband tried, he truly tried, and he, too, had been deeply hurt, just as he had deeply hurt her — my goodness. Gutting and visceral and totally gorgeous. What a sincere and totally necessary book.

[Sarah Foley]

Vulnerable, authentic, heart-breaking and beautiful. I read this in one afternoon because I couldn’t put it down. The story telling is so compelling, you forget this is non-fiction. I imagine it took a lot of courage to share this story and it was done well and with love.

[Meredith Foster]

What a beautifully written story of growth, forgiveness, and maturity. Passing this along to all my friends.

[Bajidc]

Diamond bright memories. A kaleidoscope of emotions. Prose that shines with the brilliance of love, forgiveness, and empathy - for her husband and for her younger self. Tragedy that gleams like the sharpest knife causing the death by a thousand cuts. Heartbreaking but (like the quote below) worth the read for the resilience and joy.


Superb blurb:
After a lifetime of feeling my body, it was a revelation to come into a place where no one seemed to fear theirs. And for reasons I couldn't yet fully discern, it was a relief to live in a space where no one was hiding. I was inspired by the bravery of the people who made a home there by owning the thing about them that, in so many cases, had exiled them from their friends and family and the places they'd come from. It felt like a resilient place, a joyful place.

[Christy]

I likely come to this book with a very different background than many readers, having lived through a somewhat similar experience as the author. Without going into too much detail, I just wanted to express how healing this book has been to acknowledge the tornado of emotions that comes with this experience: the shame, anger, confusion, but also the compassion and finally deep understanding of the realization, in the author’s words, “he tried.” We both tried.

This book is helping me unpack a lot of thoughts and feelings that have been too overwhelming to acknowledge up to this point, and I’m extremely grateful to Kelly for sharing her story.

[megan]

Love love love love

[Jen]

Breath-taking debut. This book is intriguing and captivating. Thought-provoking and tight as hell. (You know I appreciate a book with no wasted words.) It’s both a love story and an essay on truth, sexuality, and growth. But it’s so much more. And it reads like page-turning fiction, even though you know it’s 100% real. I devoured it in one weekend.

[Jen Johnson]

I would round this up to 3.5. Growing up in an evangelical church I resonate with a lot of Lundquist’s story and I’m glad she’s found peace. I had a hard time with the scattered feel of this memoir - the back and forth I understood in telling the story, but there were a few to many “and this was the last time…” lines for my taste. I also could have done without the chapters on Whitman, but I’ve never been a huge fan of his poetry and I do see how it shaped her perspective.

[Becky]

Wow! I stayed up until midnight finishing this gripping, heartbreaking, beautifully drawn, unflinchingly brave memoir. Kelly Foster Lundquist writes with such an incisive sense of presence that she invites us into the intimacy and heartbreak of memoir of a marriage with her. Beard unmasks the perils and loneliness of a Christianity that promotes “beating our bodies” into submission at the cost of our deepest selves, relationships and lived experiences. But Beard also reveals an alternate way forward - to live with authenticity, love and compassion.

[Annie Oortman]

I’m not sure what I expected from Kelly Foster Lundquist’s “Beard: A Memoir of a Marriage,” but I’m certain it wasn't the story I received. The book was not so much a memoir of a marriage, but more a dissertation about Lundquist’s life, her self-deprecation, her outlook, her failures, etc. I found myself skipping pages over her literary commentary on Whitman and Stoker as well as the social analysis on Ethel, Judy, and Liza’s lavender marriages. Although humorous, “Beard” is not a light book. Not worth the read.

[Jamie Jones Hullinger]

I do not rate memoirs because who am I to judge the way they tell their story.

This one is worth your time.

[Nicole Means]

Honestly, I bought this book because of the cover—who doesn't laugh out loud when they see a picture of a beard on the front of a book? I was also intrigued by the premise: a young woman falls for a closeted gay man, marries him, and is devastated when he finally comes out to her. I rarely have good experiences with memoirs, but the story hooked me enough to give this one a chance.

Within the first few pages, there were a few red flags for me. Kelly often frames her ex-husband's journey toward embracing his sexuality as something that happened to her, as if she were the primary victim. When she recounts the timeline of their marriage, she talks about becoming a "punchline," but isn't she guilty of doing the same thing to Devin? She recounts intimate moments from their relationship for laughs—Devin asking for a "pink Oxford shirt from Old Navy" becomes evidence she somehow should have known he was gay.

Both Kelly and Devin were raised in extremely conservative religious environments where homosexuality was treated almost like alcoholism—something that could be controlled or cured. Devin even underwent conversion therapy when he was younger, which only pushed him to deny who he truly was. When the couple eventually moved to Chicago, they were exposed to new people, ideas, and experiences that slowly challenged many of their assumptions about homosexuality.
Kelly seems more willing to let go of her old ways of thinking, while Devin clings to them longer because he is terrified of what will happen if people discover his secret. He fears losing his family, Kelly, and the life he has worked so hard to build.

What initially draws Kelly to Devin is that he makes her feel seen. But as Devin falls deeper into despair over living a lie, he retreats into himself. Kelly knows he is unhappy, but, like many people in their twenties, she assumes his unhappiness is somehow about her. She convinces herself she is not enough. Devin grows increasingly distant, but in reality he is secretly exploring his sexuality while hiding both his actions and his true identity. As heartbroken as Kelly is when Devin finally comes out to her, she is able to acknowledge that he genuinely TRIED. He wanted to change. He wanted to be "healed." He even maintained the façade because he did not want to lose Kelly. I wish more of the author's writing mirrored this raw emotion instead of her tendency to cast herself as the victim. In fact, Beard would have been a much stronger read if it had been a dual narrative, with each chapter switching between Kelly's and Devin's perspectives. It's one of the reasons I prefer a docuseries over a memoir—you get to hear both sides. The most compelling parts of the book were the glimpses into Devin's experience, and I found myself wishing there had been more of him and less of Kelly.

[Amy Nash Parker]

I didn’t L-O-V-E this book as much as it was hyped to me or as much as I wanted it to be truly special. I felt the tender, introspective, in-parallel storyline of the first half of the memoir morphed into a sophomoric defense of the “hag” trope that the author self-identified. Devin basically disappears once the story shifts to the “juicy” part of the novel, when they move to Chicago’s Boystown, and instead we are served glimpses of a dissertation on Whitman, Frankenstein, Liza Minnelli, and her new BFF Nick. Of course this is a memoir so the POV is what it is- but the beginning of the book felt more whole, more focused on how both of them found themselves in the need for Beard, and less of “and then I…” statements.
—-well, except for the story on the mouse in the Jackson apartment. What was that about??? ——

The book offered a unique premise, was transparent, and actually promoted some good points on marriage and partnerships of all kinds, as well learning how to be spiritually comfortable :

—p.81, recalling premarital counseling advice:
“Marriage will never be perfect, but you can make it so good. It gets deeper and richer and easier the longer you stick around”

—p.104, discussing her discovery of Julian of Norwich and how that unlocks the maternal nature of a loving God for her:
“Love, in Julian's iteration of it, is not only connected knowing; it is the only knowing. The only thing that needs to be known by any of us in her estimation is that reconciling Mother God of love…. Julian does not frenetically encourage her readers to look to their souls in imminent belief of an End of Days. Instead, she sees a longer narrative, in which ultimately “all shall be well" for we are loved. In one vision she sees the universe in a hazelnut, which she holds in the palm of her hand. It remains safe, and humanity continues to persevere, because it is part of a bigger scheme held together by love. This is radical stuff.”

— p.209, remarking on living within the legacy of a sacred place like Boystown, getting in the groove of her doctoral queer studies, and being comfortable among a growing group of the family you choose:
“There were moments late at night when the hard-won joy that surrounded me with my friends out among the people of Boystown felt like more of a blessing than I'd ever known in a church. It felt like walking up to a Catholic priest during the Liturgy of the Eucharist, an outsider to the ritual, unable to take the host onto my tongue but able, nonetheless, to cross my arms over my chest, to bow my head in reverence at the sacrifices that made the sturdy joy around me possible, and to walk away consecrated, hallowed, made more whole.”

[September]

Beard: A Memoir of a Marriage is a piercing, compassionate, and intellectually rigorous debut that dismantles the cultural shorthand surrounding heterosexual marriage, queerness, and religious conformity. With wit, vulnerability, and scholarly insight, Kelly Foster Lundquist revisits her first marriage to a closeted gay man and reframes it not as a punchline, but as a deeply human story shaped by love, denial, tenderness, and institutional harm.

Lundquist’s prose is vivid and emotionally precise, moving seamlessly between humor and heartbreak. From church camp in the late 1990s to ritual Blockbuster visits and graduate studies in queer theory, the memoir captures the texture of a shared life lived under the pressure of rigid religious expectations. The marriage itself is rendered with nuance full of affection, shared longing, and genuine intimacy even as it is undermined by secrecy and fear.

One of the memoir’s greatest strengths lies in its interrogation of the “beard” trope. Rather than accepting the cultural narrative that casts straight women in such marriages as naïve or ridiculous, Lundquist challenges readers to consider how desire, faith, and survival intersect in environments hostile to queer truth. Her analysis is grounded not only in personal experience but also in literary and cultural criticism, lending the memoir intellectual weight without sacrificing emotional immediacy.

Equally powerful is Lundquist’s examination of evangelical Christianity’s role in enforcing performances of gender and sexuality. She holds space for both herself and her former husband, refusing simplistic blame while clearly naming the damage inflicted by institutions that demand silence and self-erasure. The memoir becomes, in this way, not only a personal reckoning but a broader critique of religious systems that mistake conformity for morality.

Beard is a work of rare empathy and clarity one that honors complexity, rejects shame, and embraces ambiguity. It will resonate deeply with readers interested in memoir, queer studies, religion, and the many forms love can take under constraint. This is a brave and essential contribution to contemporary nonfiction.

[Evelyn Berry]

Kelly Foster Lundquist explores an often lampooned idea– a woman married to a closeted gay man– in her debut memoir Beard: A Memoir of a Marriage. But Kelly’s experience as a so-called “beard” is not typical and not, as she suggests in her introduction, the butt of every joke. Instead, Lundquist’s memoir excavates the rigid performances of gender and sexuality enforced by patriarchal and religious communities.
Kelly Foster Lundquist, who met her husband at church camp, grew up with a set of beliefs about faith, marriage, and womanhood, begins to question her preconceptions through study of queer theory while her husband struggles with his sexuality. Lundquist does not emerge from this story as a fool, though he acknowledges the harm she felt done as well as the harm her husband experienced. What she creates instead is a story of redemption and connection, a story about complicated love.
I want to thank the folks at Kaye Publicity and Eerdmans Publishing Company for providing an ARC copy of the book for review. If you’d like to read Kelly’s story herself and dive into the cultural examination of the “beard” trope, you can pick up Beard: A Memoir of a Marriage online or in bookstores.

[Stephanie Dargusch Borders]

Divorce memoirs are one of my most favorite subgenres of all time, and this one was special. Most divorce memoirs include a good dose of bitterness imo. One party has wronged the other, vows were obliterated, and the relationship that evolved after the fact, nonexistent. Kelly Foster Lundquist has a different story to tell. Her marriage just felt different from what were typically given in a divorce memoir, for good reason. Her husband ended up being gay. This truth is revealed to her little by little over the course of their five year marriage. Hindsight is everything, and it’s easy to see in retrospect that there were tell tale signs.

I don’t think I’ve ever finished a divorce memoir on a high note, but this was it. Truly heartwarming. I love the author and I love Devin and they certainly hurt each other along the way but they both seem like wonderful people with good hearts. All the feels with this one.

[Nicasia Solano]

An absolute stunning memoir of the author’s first marriage to a gay man. Kelly Foster Lundquist’s meditations on the damage of religion in contrast with the comfort theology offered her were profound. It’s so rare to encounter an author who is able to reconcile religion’s damage to queer people without being harsh or dismissive, but truly earnest. Smartly and beautifully written with surprising engagement with theory ranging from Julian of Norwich to Judith Butler. The scene in the snow where she experiences a transformation into acceptance and forgiveness brought me to tears that stayed for the remainder of the book. She views Devin’s effort with tremendous compassion and unbelievably written eloquence. Foster Lundquist possesses an aspirational amount of grace. A reminder that we can let difficulty and uncertainty change us for the better, if we let it. One of my favorite reads of the year and maybe of all time.

[Sonny Caterini]

I loooooved this memoir. It was really well done! Such a pleasant suprise and I became so wrapped up in the story by the end.

Her writing style was very fun, and even though there were quite a few heavy topics, it never felt like a overly emotional book. I was really rooting for Kelly as the book went on, and I think this is because the memoir never felt inflated or fake – it was a really nice blend of having a fun writerly touch and being realistic. I also liked hearing from a straight author, because I normally read queer memoirs. I was worried I would become annoyed, but I really empathized with her, and it definitely was a unique perspective (being a beard) that I haven't seen or heard about from a first-person POV.

This book wasn't so “impactful” per se, but I feel wrong giving it any less than five stars because of how much fun I had reading it!

[Jonathan Miles]

This is a wonderfully written story of love gone wrong, and it also offers a lot of useful insights into the damage done by conservative Christian culture on young people who have no idea who they are and no frame of reference of the world outside of the snow globe of their upbringing. I found myself relating to Kellie in many ways, as a believer who’s left the church, and someone who has often struggled with their faith in adulthood as they’ve watched American evangelicalism become slowly more corrupted by money, power, and imperialism (although that’s a conversation for another time). The central lesson of the book, I believe, is one that transcends merely the concept of the beard in the sense of sexuality, but also in the sense of living a happy life itself: any relationship will struggle to survive unless both partners are enjoying their most genuine existence.

[Teresa Fales]

When Kelly Foster Lundquist met her husband at summer camp, she knew she had finally met someone who just got her. She thought she got him too, but there was a major part of him that even he didn't get yet. With humor, insight, and compassion Lundquist looks back on her marriage and the discovery that her husband was cheating on her with other men. She considers her role as his beard, and how she managed to be the last to know. She invites us into the devastation of losing the man she loved, the man who loved her, but she also brings us into the redemption that has come about over the last 20 years. I received an ARC of this book from Publisher's Weekly's Grab a Galley Giveaway, and I appreciated the opportunity to see inside a complex relationship that is often deeply misunderstood.

[Elizabeth]

Despite planning to read just a chapter or two before bed, I devoured the entire book in one sitting. Lundquist perfectly weaves together culture, literary theory, and the story of both her marriage and finding herself in a way that flows freely without feeling forced. I related greatly to her desire to dive into research and literature that would give greater understanding to the events occurring in and around her life. I laughed aloud at some parts and sobbed uncontrollably at others, but through it all I was amazed at the strength and grace with which she faced so much uncertainty. I admire her willingness to share her story, one that while unique in so many ways also feels relatable and familiar. It’s also beautifully written.
I received an ARC from NetGalley.

[Sarah Wolfe Ellison]

I first heard of this book when a friend sent me an excerpt published in a magazine. From that moment, I was sucked into thinking about this book until it was published. I had the privilege of hearing the author speak at my local bookstore (shout out to Lemuria Books) where she was so captivating that I could not wait to start the book. Sadly, my list of required reading for school and work kept me from reading it until now.
This memoir was stunning. Lundquist's writing is so beautiful and drew me in so much that I often forgot I was reading and was simply lost in her words. I laughed, cried, gasped, and every other reaction you can imagine. The empathy with which she writes is wonderful and I hope she writes more in the future.

[Brian]

To keep it simple: Kelly Foster Lundquist's Beard is phenomenal. The writing is smooth and casual; this is an author comfortable with language, never wooden and never trying too hard. But what really stands out is her honesty, both with herself and in her connections with others (including what she doesn't see and doesn't know). Lundquist is often funny, but she never makes light of the serious subject matter--it never becomes the joke. Y'all can read the book description for more, but, in general, this is the story of her first marriage, to a man who happens to be gay, and how this understanding (and lack thereof) impacts the world she inhabits. Easily an award-contender.

[Kimijo]

Beard is a raw, tender, and brilliantly written memoir that peels back the layers of love, faith, and identity. Kelly Foster Lundquist revisits her first marriage to Devin an earnest search for God and belonging that collided with hidden truths. What could have been reduced to a cultural punchline becomes, in her hands, a deeply moving exploration of desire, vulnerability, and the damage done by rigid expectations of gender and sexuality. With vivid prose and unflinching empathy, Lundquist transforms a story of heartbreak into one of risk, resilience, and redemption

[Nancy Hassett]

First, a disclaimer. I know the author, although we are not close friends. If I didn't like the book, I would just not review it! Like mom taught me, if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all!

But the truth is, I LOVED this book. "Memoir" could easily be replaced by "Love Story." The author describes everything, including her feelings, so well that I felt like I was right there. Her writing style makes it so easy to read.

It sounds cliché, I both laughed and cried. Loved the book!

[Ed Gaskell]

I expected the one-sided pity party; what came as a complete surprise was a description of every meal the author had ever eaten. Yes, just when you want to know more of her tale (which takes up roughly the same amount as the attention given to her education), here come the ooooodles of noodles of adjectives - spoonfuls of the things set out on platters at buffets for your delectation in all of their luscious, sumptuous, glistening, moist deliciousness.

I listened to the author reading this on Audible. It was a little gratin.