A finely crafted story, Church Girl is a Gay, recounts in unflinching detail her life in the center of the state proudest of the Bible, in the center of the city most in charge of declaring what that meant, in the center of the 320 evangelical charismatic acres that emanated its conviction over the city like an ongoing firecracker of hot light.
Hendrix astounds in white-hot honesty as she writes, ...off every road I'd ever traveled was littered with the footprints of youth group leaders leading games out of my garage.
And it wasn't until my heart broke so badly that I couldn't stand up under the pain that my feet went looking for the soft, sandy ground of places where people weren't sure of most anything.
I was married with three kids, a leader in an evangelical non-profit.
I was 48, and I knew my insides felt built to love a woman.
But I still didn't know I was gay-because I'd never asked the question.