All the World Beside

Reviews

Praise for All the World Beside

“A heart-wrenching story of love, family, and spirituality.”
—People Magazine
 
“Affecting… Conley joins a cadre of literary writers — Daniel Mason and Lauren Groff among them — who look backward to make sense of present-day conflicts.”
—The Washington Post
 
“An evocative and mystical work of historical fiction that animates a love affair between two men in 18th-century Puritan New England… A contemplative depiction of the endurance required to survive religious intolerance that is probing, redemptive and brimming with compassion for the human race.”
—Atlanta Journal Constitution
 
“[A] gust of fresh air...the writing is masterful but un-self-flattering. The story is as linear as human life, with its twists and turns, flash-forwards and flashbacks, will allow...It moves you right along, and then it moves you deeply."
—The San Francisco Bay Area Reporter
 
"[Conley's] effortless ability to genre shift is evident from the very first page of this addictive historical thriller."
—LGBTQ Nation
 
“Asks difficult questions about the mysteries of faith and love in a hostile world and generously gives the reader a wealth of space to fully feel them.”
—Arkansas Times
 
"In this moving and powerful novel, Garrard Conley follows the men and their families as the tension between their piety and desires becomes impossible to ignore."
—Town & Country Magazine
 
“Sprawling, subtle, complex, and rewarding work of powerfully envisioned historical fiction, a novel rich in themes of faith, divinity, desire, and love.”
—Booklist, starred review
 
“Conley has crafted a rich, deeply researched story whose characters are alive with contradictions… A novel that brings its Puritan setting alive with two men who are wounded for falling in love.”
—Kirkus Reviews
 
“A finely tuned debut novel about a queer love affair...this is a potent chronicle of an underexplored era in queer history.”
—Publishers Weekly

“A gorgeous, spellbinding work of historical fiction that conjures up a society wrestling with faith, love, and a sense of belonging. It is a heartbreaking account of forbidden passions and lost innocence told with intimate, lyrical beauty. It is truly sublime. I loved it.”
—Douglas Stuart, author of Shuggie Bain and Young Mungo

"Part spell, part prayer, wholly mesmerizing. Garrard Conley casts the same magic in fiction as in the memoir that made him famous." 
—Torrey Peters, author of Detransition, Baby

“In this accomplishment of breathtaking prose, expert pacing, and extraordinary psychological intelligence, Conley presents a world as it was, as it is, and as it could be. A triumph.”
—Tess Gunty, National Book Award-winning author of Rabbit Hutch

“All the World Beside is a soaring, beautiful novel, at once sweeping and deeply personal. Conley has given us a great gift in this vivid and striking examination of the stories we tell ourselves about who we were and who we are and who we hope to be. Part restoration and part reclamation, Conley’s bold new American myth simply sings.”
—Brandon Taylor, author of Real Life
 
"A richly textured, thrilling and scandalous romance, All the World Beside is a mesmerizing read.  Skillfully paced and completely gripping from its first page, Conley gives us historical fiction at its most delicious and absorbing."
—Jordy Rosenberg, author of Confessions of the Fox

“Radical and gorgeous, decadent and deeply moral, All the World Beside upends the world as Christian patriarchs have taught us to know it. Garrard Conley’s ravishing novel embodies literature’s power to reach deep crevices that official accounts cannot, to water the dry earth of early American history and transform it into fertile gardens not only of the mind, but of the glorious, imperfect human spirit.
—Meredith Talusan, author of Fairest
 
“Garrard Conley has found a new and ravishing music: a language that straddles the 18th and 21st centuries, a vehicle for faith and desire. In its closing movements, this novel contains some of the finest writing I've encountered in recent American fiction.”
—Garth Greenwell, author of Cleanness
 
“Teaches us that in Puritan America the scarlet letter was not A for adultery but H for homosexuality and that the only romance with God is tense and tragic.”
—Edmund White Expand reviews