Marriage Memoir ‘Beard’ Weds Hope Amid Heartbreak https://ift.tt/hfcRVin
Kelly Foster Lundquist’s Beard: A Memoir of a Marriage starts by letting the reader know that what’s coming is almost unbelievably ironic — while studying for a Ph.D. in queer theory, Lundquist will discover her husband, Devin, is cheating on her with men. More specifically, her husband is outed to her on a Halloween night in Boystown, the Chicago gay neighborhood where they live. Even worse, the night she discovers her husband is gay, she is dressed in a Liza Minnelli costume, whom Lundquist describes as a “gay icon and daughter of a gay icon, [who] was also a beard, and a daughter of a beard who was the daughter of a beard.”
Unsurprisingly, much of Beard reads like really good gossip. I was hooked from the start, in part because I wanted to know how it all unraveled, but also because the unraveling is done in a way that is both like a confession and an intro to queer theory. She investigates her failed marriage by digging into her past and the “beard” trope — a straight woman who (unknowingly in Lundquist’s case) serves as a cover for a gay man — through history and pop culture. She shares everything from her issues with body image and gender roles to notes from her doctoral research classes, where she reads “books about men who hide truths and women who pay the price for the hiding.”
Her story begins in a Mississippi Christian summer camp, where teenage Kelly meets the popular and attractive Devin. They first interact after an icebreaker session when they are asked to draw God on a piece of paper, something Kelly finds surprisingly difficult.
“Unlike the people who grew up being told God would keep them safe at night… I’d been told God could either protect or kill me at the roll of his immortal dice. Either way, he’d be good. Either way, he’d be wise. So I’d lain in bed watching shadows, wondering which way the dice had turned for me, trying to love what could kill me and still be good.”
They marry in their early 20s, even after Devin shares his fears that she “can’t actually know [him]. Not really..,” but Kelly’s deep insecurity in her spirituality and femininity push her closer to him. Throughout the memoir, we see Kelly use her relationship with Devin and her faith in God as “camouflage” to fit in and feel acceptance. One of the most compelling arcs in Beard is the gradual deconstructing of that faith. It begins slowly with small shifts, like when she decides “to write about Julian of Norwich, the woman who… writes about God the Mother, which is as controversial a topic as [she] can possibly imagine.” Later, after moving out of the South and into Boystown, beginning her Ph.D. program, and reading Walt Whitman, Kelly begins to explore her own performance of gender and sexuality.
“I feel neither a profound dissonance with the idea of being a woman nor a profound attachment to the idea of it, and so my attachment to the trappings of womanhood as I was reared in the South to see it, has waned and was already beginning to wane in Boystown.”
Lundquist filled her memoir with evocative imagery, especially when it comes to food. Although I found some of these passages distracting, they add weight to her struggles with anorexia and self-perception, which become a major theme. There are also some particularly emotional moments when the food details feel earned and grounding. When the couple visits Devin’s grandparents in Oklahoma, Devin is distant, the visit is uncomfortable and the house is full of religious decor. Sitting in the living room with Oreos and Kool-Aid, Kelly grasps for stability.
“Seated, I take a crumbly bite of Oreo and the first sip of Kool-Aid I’ve had in years. Consumed together, the cookie and the Kool-Aid taste like Vacation Bible School, like fellowship meals after church, like the lips of all the Styrofoam cups my teeth marked like the draping folds of a necklace.”
There’s another scene I keep thinking about, when Kelly spends the night walking around a wintry Chicago in flip-flops. It was all she had time to put on after finally getting the truth from Devin — that he was sleeping with the man he had assured her was straight — before quickly running out into the snow. We see her move from rage to acceptance as she returns home at dawn to make “toast with the last of the apricot jam with rosemary and lemon zest and some coffee.”
Ultimately, Beard succeeds because it shares all the juicy details of a complicated marriage while never exploiting its subject matter. I found myself frustrated with Kelly at times (the red flags were so obvious!), but that frustration made her eventual clarity and catharsis even more satisfying. When the snowy morning arrived and she finally stopped fighting for a marriage that never should have existed, I felt her relief, too. In the end, we realize that Devin was a beard for Kelly just as much as she was for him, and the journey for them both to find the acceptance they so deeply desired within themselves was incredibly moving and filled me with hope.
NONFICTION Beard: A Memoir of a Marriage
By Kelly Foster Lundquist
William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
Published October 30, 2025
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