Beard

About this book

Winner of the 2026 Minnesota Book Award for Memoir and Creative Nonfiction"At once brave and tender, this is a candid look at the burdens of love and the challenges of discovering oneself."―Publishers Weekly (starred review) 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.Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award Life Writing Finalist (2025)Friends of the St. Paul Public Library Minnesota Book Award Memoir & Creative Nonfiction (2026)Last Syllable Book Award Nonfiction Finalist (2025)Memoir Magazine Memoir Prize Honorable Mention (2025)