The Secret Gospel of Mark

Praise

“This is a portrait of the artist, narrated by a priest and a poet and a gay man with tenderness and searing honesty. Spencer Reece weaves the poetry he loves into how he has lived, the poetry as solace and relief, as confirmation and rescue, as redemption.” —Colm Toíbín

“Spencer Reece brings into sharp focus a life of authentic despair and ultimate redemption. His descriptions are bracing, honest, often lyrical, and sometimes violent, and they are also deeply psychologically penetrating, characterized by hard-won insight and profound revelation. This is a bildungsroman of gay self-acceptance as the acceptance of others has inflected it; it is a book about poetry that is itself a compilation of prose poems; it is a tender but unforgivingly clear-sighted exposition of Christian faith.” —Andrew Solomon, National Book Award–winning author of Far from the Tree

“Spencer Reece’s The Secret Gospel of Mark is ‘a memoir-breviary, a poetry devotional’ for our time, in the company of Thomas Merton’s The Seven Story Mountain. With extraordinary candor, Reece discloses the whole of his life, body and soul, as poet and priest, brother and son. It is an extraordinary journey of sexual and spiritual awakening, in the company of poets from beginning to end. A profound and necessary work, luminous and full of grace.” —Carolyn Forché, poet and author of What You Have Heard Is True: A Memoir of Witness and Resistance 

“In a resonant, deeply moving memoir, award-winning poet Reece (b. 1963) reflects on love, spirituality, family, and his torments over his sexual identity. … A beautifully written, engrossing narrative.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“Reece’s testimony is heart-wrenching yet triumphantly reassuring about spiritual resiliency and the consolation that is in poetry.” —Booklist, starred review