Reviews
Booklist ""An enjoyable and compassionate memoir."" She Reads ""With sharp wit and tender honesty, Lundquist turns her story into a meditation on desire, damage, and the surprising forms redemption can take."" Publishers Weekly (starred review) ""At once brave and tender, this is a candid look at the burdens of love and the challenges of discovering oneself."" ""Kelly Foster Lundquist examines an archetype and emerges with a magnetizing story of a relationship that defies category: shifting, cryptic, tender, marked by contradiction and care. In vital, kinetic prose, Beard maps the fault lines between love, desire, and performance, the roles we learn to play whether we're conscious of them or not. A bracing, fresh testament to becoming, no matter who we are."" --Paul Lisicky, author of The Narrow Door and Song So Wild and Blue ""Beard is everything I want from a book: hilarious, moving, surprising. Imagine the humanity of Gail Caldwell mixed with the absurdity and wit of Amy Sedaris. Kelly Foster Lundquist's memoir of her complex marriage is timely and timeless. A true feat of storytelling and personal revelation."" --Nick White, author of How to Survive a Summer ""Beard traces the aftermath of love, secrecy, and the longing to be seen. Moving between memory and myth, Lundquist weaves personal narrative with the charged symbols of queer iconography--glamour, disguise, survival. What does it mean to carry someone, or to be the one carried? What remains when the performance ends? An incisive, beautiful meditation on intimacy and identity, Beard reminds us: not all beards are false, and not all truths are spoken."" --Juliet Patterson, author of Sinkhole ""Beard is a keenly observed personal history, an enduring story of love and loss and then, ultimately, love. Lundquist beautifully renders her fragile first marriage and all its earnest striving with honesty and grace. She has given me everything I want in a memoir; Beard is smart, funny, richly detailed, candid, revelatory, thoughtful, meaningful, and moving. And, in the way of all great works, it leads us to higher truths."" --Michael Kleber-Diggs, author of Worldly Things ""In breathtaking prose, Kelly Foster Lundquist renders visible the 'beard, ' an experience so often presented as little more than a footnote in someone else's story. A love story, a treatise on seeing and overlooking, and an exploration of what it means to know oneself and be known by another, Beard is a tremendous achievement, and also just tremendous writing. I will be recommending it to everyone I know."" --Chris Stedman, author of IRL and Faitheist, creator and host of the podcast Unread ""Beard is brilliant and bristly and heartbreaking and funny as hell, despite the fact that this book turns out to have very little to do with actual facial hair. Kelly Foster Lundquist debuts here as a wry, cunning Rumpelstiltskin, turning the straw of human suffering into literary gold. The queerest thing of all turns out to be what all of us need: love."" --Harrison Scott Key, author of How to Stay Married ""Out of the heartbreak of shame and fear, Kelly Foster Lundquist crafts truly beautiful and searching family portraits as she simultaneously chronicles her own deepening intellect, her capacious, hard-won sense of compassion, and her commitment to authenticity."" --Lia Purpura, author of All the Fierce Tethers and On Looking ""Kelly Foster Lundquist's Beard announces the arrival of a powerful voice in memoir. Beard offers an unsentimental, unqualified account of two people discovering themselves around and through the tether of their marriage. In scenes rendered with vivid, wrenching detail, Lundquist presents the complicated algebra of the facts and fictions of those years, giving readers access to even the most vulnerable of moments in her life. What I loved about this book was its tenderness, its compassion. Beard reminds us love is a living, growing, changing force--that it calls us to be the best version of ourselves even in the most difficult moments, and that understanding and forgiveness are not idle acts. They are radical, nourishing, and necessary to thrive with dignity. Lundquist's work to unpack this story for herself and for us is a gift."" --Charles Jensen, author of Splice of Life ""Kelly Foster Lundquist turns the well-worn trope of the 'beard' inside out, delivering a memoir as sharp as it is tender. With wit, precision, and unflinching honesty, she shows how easy it is to be both the punchline and the truth-teller. Moving between the personal and the cultural, Beard excavates the messy realities of love, shame, queerness, and belonging. Ultimately, it's a memoir about misrecognition of others and of oneself. About the longing to be chosen, the betrayal of self-erasure, and the bittersweet process of rewriting the stories we once believed would save us."" --Ryan Berg, author of No House to Call My Home
""Kelly Foster Lundquist examines an archetype and emerges with a magnetizing story of a relationship that defies category: shifting, cryptic, tender, marked by contradiction and care. In vital, kinetic prose, Beard maps the fault lines between love, desire, and performance, the roles we learn to play whether we're conscious of them or not. A bracing, fresh testament to becoming, no matter who we are."" --Paul Lisicky, author of The Narrow Door and Song So Wild and Blue ""Beard is everything I want from a book: hilarious, moving, surprising. Imagine the humanity of Gail Caldwell mixed with the absurdity and wit of Amy Sedaris. Kelly Foster Lundquist's memoir of her complex marriage is timely and timeless. A true feat of storytelling and personal revelation."" --Nick White, author of How to Survive a Summer ""Beard traces the aftermath of love, secrecy, and the longing to be seen. Moving between memory and myth, Lundquist weaves personal narrative with the charged symbols of queer iconography--glamour, disguise, survival. What does it mean to carry someone, or to be the one carried? What remains when the performance ends? An incisive, beautiful meditation on intimacy and identity, Beard reminds us: not all beards are false, and not all truths are spoken."" --Juliet Patterson, author of Sinkhole ""Beard is a keenly observed personal history, an enduring story of love and loss and then, ultimately, love. Lundquist beautifully renders her fragile first marriage and all its earnest striving with honesty and grace. She has given me everything I want in a memoir; Beard is smart, funny, richly detailed, candid, revelatory, thoughtful, meaningful, and moving. And, in the way of all great works, it leads us to higher truths."" --Michael Kleber-Diggs, author of Worldly Things ""In breathtaking prose, Kelly Foster Lundquist renders visible the 'beard, ' an experience so often presented as little more than a footnote in someone else's story. A love story, a treatise on seeing and overlooking, and an exploration of what it means to know oneself and be known by another, Beard is a tremendous achievement, and also just tremendous writing. I will be recommending it to everyone I know."" --Chris Stedman, author of IRL and Faitheist, creator and host of the podcast Unread ""Beard is brilliant and bristly and heartbreaking and funny as hell, despite the fact that this book turns out to have very little to do with actual facial hair. Kelly Foster Lundquist debuts here as a wry, cunning Rumpelstiltskin, turning the straw of human suffering into literary gold. The queerest thing of all turns out to be what all of us need: love."" --Harrison Scott Key, author of How to Stay Married ""Out of the heartbreak of shame and fear, Kelly Foster Lundquist crafts truly beautiful and searching family portraits as she simultaneously chronicles her own deepening intellect, her capacious, hard-won sense of compassion, and her commitment to authenticity."" --Lia Purpura, author of All the Fierce Tethers and On Looking ""Kelly Foster Lundquist's Beard announces the arrival of a powerful voice in memoir. Beard offers an unsentimental, unqualified account of two people discovering themselves around and through the tether of their marriage. In scenes rendered with vivid, wrenching detail, Lundquist presents the complicated algebra of the facts and fictions of those years, giving readers access to even the most vulnerable of moments in her life. What I loved about this book was its tenderness, its compassion. Beard reminds us love is a living, growing, changing force--that it calls us to be the best version of ourselves even in the most difficult moments, and that understanding and forgiveness are not idle acts. They are radical, nourishing, and necessary to thrive with dignity. Lundquist's work to unpack this story for herself and for us is a gift."" --Charles Jensen, author of Splice of Life ""Kelly Foster Lundquist turns the well-worn trope of the 'beard' inside out, delivering a memoir as sharp as it is tender. With wit, precision, and unflinching honesty, she shows how easy it is to be both the punchline and the truth-teller. Moving between the personal and the cultural, Beard excavates the messy realities of love, shame, queerness, and belonging. Ultimately, it's a memoir about misrecognition of others and of oneself. About the longing to be chosen, the betrayal of self-erasure, and the bittersweet process of rewriting the stories we once believed would save us."" --Ryan Berg, author of No House to Call My Home
""Beard is a loving memoir about personal discoveries and the acceptance of a husband's coming out within a complicated marriage."" --Foreword Reviews ""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) ""An enjoyable and compassionate memoir."" --Booklist ""With sharp wit and tender honesty, Lundquist turns her story into a meditation on desire, damage, and the surprising forms redemption can take."" --She Reads ""Kelly Foster Lundquist examines an archetype and emerges with a magnetizing story of a relationship that defies category: shifting, cryptic, tender, marked by contradiction and care. In vital, kinetic prose, Beard maps the fault lines between love, desire, and performance, the roles we learn to play whether we're conscious of them or not. A bracing, fresh testament to becoming, no matter who we are."" --Paul Lisicky, author of The Narrow Door and Song So Wild and Blue ""Beard is everything I want from a book: hilarious, moving, surprising. Imagine the humanity of Gail Caldwell mixed with the absurdity and wit of Amy Sedaris. Kelly Foster Lundquist's memoir of her complex marriage is timely and timeless. A true feat of storytelling and personal revelation."" --Nick White, author of How to Survive a Summer ""Beard traces the aftermath of love, secrecy, and the longing to be seen. Moving between memory and myth, Lundquist weaves personal narrative with the charged symbols of queer iconography--glamour, disguise, survival. What does it mean to carry someone, or to be the one carried? What remains when the performance ends? An incisive, beautiful meditation on intimacy and identity, Beard reminds us: not all beards are false, and not all truths are spoken."" --Juliet Patterson, author of Sinkhole ""Beard is a keenly observed personal history, an enduring story of love and loss and then, ultimately, love. Lundquist beautifully renders her fragile first marriage and all its earnest striving with honesty and grace. She has given me everything I want in a memoir; Beard is smart, funny, richly detailed, candid, revelatory, thoughtful, meaningful, and moving. And, in the way of all great works, it leads us to higher truths."" --Michael Kleber-Diggs, author of Worldly Things ""In breathtaking prose, Kelly Foster Lundquist renders visible the 'beard, ' an experience so often presented as little more than a footnote in someone else's story. A love story, a treatise on seeing and overlooking, and an exploration of what it means to know oneself and be known by another, Beard is a tremendous achievement, and also just tremendous writing. I will be recommending it to everyone I know."" --Chris Stedman, author of IRL and Faitheist, creator and host of the podcast Unread ""Beard is brilliant and bristly and heartbreaking and funny as hell, despite the fact that this book turns out to have very little to do with actual facial hair. Kelly Foster Lundquist debuts here as a wry, cunning Rumpelstiltskin, turning the straw of human suffering into literary gold. The queerest thing of all turns out to be what all of us need: love."" --Harrison Scott Key, author of How to Stay Married ""Out of the heartbreak of shame and fear, Kelly Foster Lundquist crafts truly beautiful and searching family portraits as she simultaneously chronicles her own deepening intellect, her capacious, hard-won sense of compassion, and her commitment to authenticity."" --Lia Purpura, author of All the Fierce Tethers and On Looking ""Kelly Foster Lundquist's Beard announces the arrival of a powerful voice in memoir. Beard offers an unsentimental, unqualified account of two people discovering themselves around and through the tether of their marriage. In scenes rendered with vivid, wrenching detail, Lundquist presents the complicated algebra of the facts and fictions of those years, giving readers access to even the most vulnerable of moments in her life. What I loved about this book was its tenderness, its compassion. Beard reminds us love is a living, growing, changing force--that it calls us to be the best version of ourselves even in the most difficult moments, and that understanding and forgiveness are not idle acts. They are radical, nourishing, and necessary to thrive with dignity. Lundquist's work to unpack this story for herself and for us is a gift."" --Charles Jensen, author of Splice of Life ""Kelly Foster Lundquist turns the well-worn trope of the 'beard' inside out, delivering a memoir as sharp as it is tender. With wit, precision, and unflinching honesty, she shows how easy it is to be both the punchline and the truth-teller. Moving between the personal and the cultural, Beard excavates the messy realities of love, shame, queerness, and belonging. Ultimately, it's a memoir about misrecognition of others and of oneself. About the longing to be chosen, the betrayal of self-erasure, and the bittersweet process of rewriting the stories we once believed would save us."" --Ryan Berg, author of No House to Call My Home
Publishers Weekly (starred review) ""At once brave and tender, this is a candid look at the burdens of love and the challenges of discovering oneself."" ""Kelly Foster Lundquist examines an archetype and emerges with a magnetizing story of a relationship that defies category: shifting, cryptic, tender, marked by contradiction and care. In vital, kinetic prose, Beard maps the fault lines between love, desire, and performance, the roles we learn to play whether we're conscious of them or not. A bracing, fresh testament to becoming, no matter who we are."" --Paul Lisicky, author of The Narrow Door and Song So Wild and Blue ""Beard is everything I want from a book: hilarious, moving, surprising. Imagine the humanity of Gail Caldwell mixed with the absurdity and wit of Amy Sedaris. Kelly Foster Lundquist's memoir of her complex marriage is timely and timeless. A true feat of storytelling and personal revelation."" --Nick White, author of How to Survive a Summer ""Beard traces the aftermath of love, secrecy, and the longing to be seen. Moving between memory and myth, Lundquist weaves personal narrative with the charged symbols of queer iconography--glamour, disguise, survival. What does it mean to carry someone, or to be the one carried? What remains when the performance ends? An incisive, beautiful meditation on intimacy and identity, Beard reminds us: not all beards are false, and not all truths are spoken."" --Juliet Patterson, author of Sinkhole ""Beard is a keenly observed personal history, an enduring story of love and loss and then, ultimately, love. Lundquist beautifully renders her fragile first marriage and all its earnest striving with honesty and grace. She has given me everything I want in a memoir; Beard is smart, funny, richly detailed, candid, revelatory, thoughtful, meaningful, and moving. And, in the way of all great works, it leads us to higher truths."" --Michael Kleber-Diggs, author of Worldly Things ""In breathtaking prose, Kelly Foster Lundquist renders visible the 'beard, ' an experience so often presented as little more than a footnote in someone else's story. A love story, a treatise on seeing and overlooking, and an exploration of what it means to know oneself and be known by another, Beard is a tremendous achievement, and also just tremendous writing. I will be recommending it to everyone I know."" --Chris Stedman, author of IRL and Faitheist, creator and host of the podcast Unread ""Beard is brilliant and bristly and heartbreaking and funny as hell, despite the fact that this book turns out to have very little to do with actual facial hair. Kelly Foster Lundquist debuts here as a wry, cunning Rumpelstiltskin, turning the straw of human suffering into literary gold. The queerest thing of all turns out to be what all of us need: love."" --Harrison Scott Key, author of How to Stay Married ""Out of the heartbreak of shame and fear, Kelly Foster Lundquist crafts truly beautiful and searching family portraits as she simultaneously chronicles her own deepening intellect, her capacious, hard-won sense of compassion, and her commitment to authenticity."" --Lia Purpura, author of All the Fierce Tethers and On Looking ""Kelly Foster Lundquist's Beard announces the arrival of a powerful voice in memoir. Beard offers an unsentimental, unqualified account of two people discovering themselves around and through the tether of their marriage. In scenes rendered with vivid, wrenching detail, Lundquist presents the complicated algebra of the facts and fictions of those years, giving readers access to even the most vulnerable of moments in her life. What I loved about this book was its tenderness, its compassion. Beard reminds us love is a living, growing, changing force--that it calls us to be the best version of ourselves even in the most difficult moments, and that understanding and forgiveness are not idle acts. They are radical, nourishing, and necessary to thrive with dignity. Lundquist's work to unpack this story for herself and for us is a gift."" --Charles Jensen, author of Splice of Life ""Kelly Foster Lundquist turns the well-worn trope of the 'beard' inside out, delivering a memoir as sharp as it is tender. With wit, precision, and unflinching honesty, she shows how easy it is to be both the punchline and the truth-teller. Moving between the personal and the cultural, Beard excavates the messy realities of love, shame, queerness, and belonging. Ultimately, it's a memoir about misrecognition of others and of oneself. About the longing to be chosen, the betrayal of self-erasure, and the bittersweet process of rewriting the stories we once believed would save us."" --Ryan Berg, author of No House to Call My Home
""[M]uch 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. . . . Ultimately, Beard succeeds because it shares all the juicy details of a complicated marriage while never exploiting its subject matter."" --Southern Review of Books ""Beard is a loving memoir about personal discoveries and the acceptance of a husband's coming out within a complicated marriage."" --Foreword Reviews ""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) ""An enjoyable and compassionate memoir."" --Booklist ""With sharp wit and tender honesty, Lundquist turns her story into a meditation on desire, damage, and the surprising forms redemption can take."" --She Reads ""Kelly Foster Lundquist examines an archetype and emerges with a magnetizing story of a relationship that defies category: shifting, cryptic, tender, marked by contradiction and care. In vital, kinetic prose, Beard maps the fault lines between love, desire, and performance, the roles we learn to play whether we're conscious of them or not. A bracing, fresh testament to becoming, no matter who we are."" --Paul Lisicky, author of The Narrow Door and Song So Wild and Blue ""Beard is everything I want from a book: hilarious, moving, surprising. Imagine the humanity of Gail Caldwell mixed with the absurdity and wit of Amy Sedaris. Kelly Foster Lundquist's memoir of her complex marriage is timely and timeless. A true feat of storytelling and personal revelation."" --Nick White, author of How to Survive a Summer ""Beard traces the aftermath of love, secrecy, and the longing to be seen. Moving between memory and myth, Lundquist weaves personal narrative with the charged symbols of queer iconography--glamour, disguise, survival. What does it mean to carry someone, or to be the one carried? What remains when the performance ends? An incisive, beautiful meditation on intimacy and identity, Beard reminds us: not all beards are false, and not all truths are spoken."" --Juliet Patterson, author of Sinkhole ""Beard is a keenly observed personal history, an enduring story of love and loss and then, ultimately, love. Lundquist beautifully renders her fragile first marriage and all its earnest striving with honesty and grace. She has given me everything I want in a memoir; Beard is smart, funny, richly detailed, candid, revelatory, thoughtful, meaningful, and moving. And, in the way of all great works, it leads us to higher truths."" --Michael Kleber-Diggs, author of Worldly Things ""In breathtaking prose, Kelly Foster Lundquist renders visible the 'beard, ' an experience so often presented as little more than a footnote in someone else's story. A love story, a treatise on seeing and overlooking, and an exploration of what it means to know oneself and be known by another, Beard is a tremendous achievement, and also just tremendous writing. I will be recommending it to everyone I know."" --Chris Stedman, author of IRL and Faitheist, creator and host of the podcast Unread ""Beard is brilliant and bristly and heartbreaking and funny as hell, despite the fact that this book turns out to have very little to do with actual facial hair. Kelly Foster Lundquist debuts here as a wry, cunning Rumpelstiltskin, turning the straw of human suffering into literary gold. The queerest thing of all turns out to be what all of us need: love."" --Harrison Scott Key, author of How to Stay Married ""Out of the heartbreak of shame and fear, Kelly Foster Lundquist crafts truly beautiful and searching family portraits as she simultaneously chronicles her own deepening intellect, her capacious, hard-won sense of compassion, and her commitment to authenticity."" --Lia Purpura, author of All the Fierce Tethers and On Looking ""Kelly Foster Lundquist's Beard announces the arrival of a powerful voice in memoir. Beard offers an unsentimental, unqualified account of two people discovering themselves around and through the tether of their marriage. In scenes rendered with vivid, wrenching detail, Lundquist presents the complicated algebra of the facts and fictions of those years, giving readers access to even the most vulnerable of moments in her life. What I loved about this book was its tenderness, its compassion. Beard reminds us love is a living, growing, changing force--that it calls us to be the best version of ourselves even in the most difficult moments, and that understanding and forgiveness are not idle acts. They are radical, nourishing, and necessary to thrive with dignity. Lundquist's work to unpack this story for herself and for us is a gift."" --Charles Jensen, author of Splice of Life ""Kelly Foster Lundquist turns the well-worn trope of the 'beard' inside out, delivering a memoir as sharp as it is tender. With wit, precision, and unflinching honesty, she shows how easy it is to be both the punchline and the truth-teller. Moving between the personal and the cultural, Beard excavates the messy realities of love, shame, queerness, and belonging. Ultimately, it's a memoir about misrecognition of others and of oneself. About the longing to be chosen, the betrayal of self-erasure, and the bittersweet process of rewriting the stories we once believed would save us."" --Ryan Berg, author of No House to Call My Home
