What Tried to Kill Me Had Many Names: A Memoir of Spirit, Sex, and Survival (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781943977963)

What Tried to Kill Me Had Many Names is a fearless memoir of spirit, sex, and survival. Raised in a strict Christian home where every desire was measured against sin, Marc Gauss grew up believing that love-especially the kind he felt for other men-was something that had to be hidden, prayed away, or punished. As he moves from small-town boyhood to college campuses, locker rooms, churches, and the neon freedom of gay nightlife, Gauss confronts the contradictions between the life he was taught to live and the truth of who he is. Along the way he encounters cruelty, rejection, ecstatic freedom, and moments of devastating despair-including the kind of spiritual shame that nearly costs him his life. Told with disarming candor, humor, desire, and vulnerability, What Tried to Kill Me Had Many Names is the story of a man who survived religious judgment, sexual awakening, and the many identities others tried to force upon him. It is a memoir about reclaiming joy, owning one's body, and learning-finally-to live without apology.

Author: Marc Gauss
ISBN-10: 1943977968
ISBN-13: 9781943977963
Publisher: Sibling Rivalry Press, LLC
Language: English
Published: 09/15/2026
Pages: 260
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.78lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.59d