There’s a scene in Gaytheist: Coming Out of My Orthodox Childhood (Street Noise Books, 2024) where a Rabbi is telling a classroom of adolescent students that everyone spends some amount of time (up to a year) repenting in Hell after death. A year of life is endless to a 12-year old. A year must have felt even longer to Lonnie Mann, struggling through middle-school yeshiva as a closeted gay kid in a closed Orthodox Jewish community and oppressive family.
As the scene progresses, Lonnie comes to the pivotal realization that spending 12 months in Hell is far superior to a lifetime of denial and loneliness. This is a moment where we see who young Lonnie is; a kid made wise beyond his years, facing the endless prospect of hell on earth. Lonnie’s story is brave and frustrating, but at its core it is a story of triumph; of gaining the hard-won freedom that comes from embracing and carving out a paradise on earth.
My first impression of Lonnie Mann was that he was someone I wanted to talk to more. This is a tough impression to make at a comic book festival, where there is a LOT of talking, and you meet hundreds of people. I was doing a signing at the MoCCA convention in... 2009? 2010? Lonnie had waited in a short line of people at my table before introducing himself and handing me a minicomic he’d made. It was an extremely early iteration of what would later become Gaythiest.
Comics are carried by the stories. Many argue that the art or the writing—adept craftsmanship or understanding of the medium—are what makes for a good comic, but having a good story and knowing how to tell it is the foundation. Lonnie was still finding his style when I first met him, working on his drawing and writing skills and figuring out his voice. But I knew from the get-go that he had a story I wanted to see as a book, and I’m thrilled that the stapled minicomic I saw all those years ago is now grown up into this book.
A few days after our initial hectic meeting at the comic festival, Lonnie and I met up at a quiet Japanese tea house in midtown Manhattan and talked for hours about comics and our childhoods: my own atheistic upbringing, and his in Jewish Orthodoxy, separated in proximity by only a few miles.
More than a decade later, we’re still talking. And while Gaythiest answers so many of my questions—and lets me learn so much more about this person I’ve known for so long—somehow reading this book makes me want to talk to him EVEN MORE.
So I’m going to! Below is an interview with Lonnie Mann, author and co-illustrator of Gaythiest with his partner, Ryan Gatts.
LUCY KNISLEY: LET’S TALK ABOUT FAMILY! One of my favorite parallels in your book is the opening scene of near-drowning. I love how you harkened back to it in the scene in the Mikvah. How do you see your use of the water and your father’s presence in these scenes?
LONNIE MANN: So, obviously there's a lot going on here.
The pool story felt like a perfect parallel, because while I have (and do) love swimming in deep water and looking around on the bottom of a pool, seeing everything usually invisible (or hard to see) under the surface, it's also dangerous! Drowning is a real thing to be cautious about, but of course water is one of the most important things for humans to stay alive.
In those younger days of my childhood, I still 100% believed in Orthodox Judaism. Even though all the rules could feel kind of suffocating at times, I didn't think you could ever have too much of it - more should have always been better (or so I thought).
I would eventually come to understand through experience that not only can too much of it indeed be dangerous, but the system and substance itself does not have my best interests at heart. In fact, it doesn't have thoughts or feelings about me at all - it's not paying attention (it can't).
Similarly, to a degree, while I'm sure my dad thinks he had my best interests at heart, he was incapable of taking my cries for help seriously. I think he made a mistake that many do, which is thinking that just because you imagine yourself as a good person or that you care about certain things, it must mean you are a good person, and are actively helping, even when you're not. It was a rude awakening to experience not just the danger of underestimating the water, but also putting misplaced trust in my dad (and eventually my mom too), who I'd previously thought I could more or less trust fully.
One last thing is that, probably pretty obviously, I used blue in the book to represent Judaism, my parents, repression, and generally negative things and feelings - so, water being blue just happened to work on that level too.
It’s great! And the gradual lessening of the oppressive blue coloration is a wonderful metaphor for the release of your younger self from the constraints imposed on you.
It seems, like so many things, that a big theme of Gaythiest (and family, in a lot of cases) comes down to control. In the case of your story, control over behavior and over children - as a parent, this is something that I’m very curious about. I spend energy trying to shield my own kid from neo-Nazis on video game tutorials online, but there’s a scene where your mother is trying to prevent you from seeing the Ellen DeGeneres episode where Ellen comes out of the closet. She tells you it’s “for grown ups.” Do you think religion was used as a controlling force to suppress your queer self? Religion is so often the arbiter of what is “appropriate for kids.” I’ll also mention the overwhelmingly high rate of graphic novel bans for younger readers, so it ties in nicely with comics in general!
In my case, and I believe many others (including outside Orthodox Judaism), religion was absolutely used as a means of controlling and suppressing me not just as queer, but really as human in general.
In the book, I tried to take more of a "show don't tell" approach, without going into too much detail about complex things like kosher rules, tefillin (the little boxes worn on my head and arm during morning prayer), and endless other rules, but I tried to show enough little glimpses to give the impression that almost all your actions throughout every day are regulated. Like Tevye mentions in the song "Tradition" from Fiddler on the Roof, it even affects how you tie your shoes! But also which hand to wipe with in the bathroom, how many hours you have to wait after eating meat before you can eat dairy again, which prayers to say at which time of day and on which day of the week, and so on. If you believe, care, and pay attention, it leaves almost no time to think for yourself about anything.
And there are special rules against not reading anything that might tempt you away from Judaism ("heresy"), even rules against going into any non-Jewish houses of worship.
On the more specific topic of controlling what information or media kids have access to: it's quite a big subject. Disclaimer, I don't have any kids of my own, but of course I was a kid once!
I can of course 100% understand, and would most likely encourage, trying to prevent kids from falling down weird Nazi internet holes, as a specific example. But I think in general it's better not to censor content from kids when they want to see it, but instead be present to help them process it through conversation they can understand at their age. But again, no kids here, so just based on my own childhood experiences!
When something is forbidden, I think it's safe to assume they're going to try even harder to see it. But when and if they have questions about it, or if they don't have questions but come away with a dangerously incorrect understanding of it, there's no one around to help answer questions and explain what they just consumed.
Examples of this are nearly infinite: Fight Club is specifically about how dangerously easy it can be to fall prey to a Proud Boys-type cult of personality, and how to recognize and stay away from them, but so many actual Proud Boys and similar type dudebros treat it like a manifesto.
The song "Tomorrow Belongs to Me," written by a Jew and sung by a Nazi character in a musical that is explicitly anti-Nazi, being adopted by actual Nazis as a sort of anthem, is a similarly weird phenomenon.
Obviously, when sex as a topic is completely forbidden, kids grow up with very incorrect ideas, with no one to ask who can help correct them - especially in a country with extremely insufficient sex ed. In this case in particular, due to America's puritanically religious view of sex as inherently immoral, if it's a topic in any capacity (including non-explicit, non-biological, merely existence-implying), then it must be banned and hidden away from anyone under 18, lest they find out about S-E-X and devolve into alcoholic drug-addicted nymphomaniacs (this is always the ultimate destination). Oddly, the same people with that point of view have no problem with the same degree of existence in stories by straight cis couples, because somehow straight romance doesn't inherently imply any kinds of sex - babies just appear magically from the stork (sarcasm, sarcasm).
I got pretty long-winded there, but to sum up: banning topics completely just means you're not around to help dispel wrong ideas.
I think you tread lightly in your book comparing the rituals and laws of your upbringing to the rituals and laws of a mental illness. Your family life was understandably fraught, and you went through periods of adherence and separation with both your family and your faith. For many queer kids, this is familiar ground, though absent of as much of the religious couching. What are your feelings on OCD and eating disorders vs. rituals and kosher laws?
It's so interesting that came through, because it's definitely something I've thought a lot about, but I don't remember putting anything about that line of thought in the book. But it's completely possible I did and it's just slipping my mind at the moment! Or maybe simply describing the rules and rituals just gives that impression all by itself.
Although I've always had a difficult relationship with food (probably like most people these days), I'm fortunate to have never developed any diagnosed eating disorders. But I do think, like you rightly point out, that the degree of obsessive yet arbitrary food rules in Orthodox Judaism is inherently unhealthy.
It's funny to me when I sometimes see non-Jews who try to only buy kosher products because they seem to think something like "it's a system of food rules, it must be inherently healthier," when it really isn't at all. But it does provide another cudgel for authority figures to use to control what people do with their own bodies, which I believe is inherently gross.
As I've grown up and met and learned about all different kinds of people and ways of thinking and feeling, one powerful (and honestly, difficult) category is just how differently each person thinks about and responds to rules and regulations.
I could never understand when I'd see someone who purported to believe this religion was all true, directly from God, and all the horrible punishments we were promised to receive if we broke even the tiniest rules, and yet just didn't really take it all that seriously - not being all that careful. In my mind, that contradiction simply does not compute. It was like walking up to an electric fence, claiming you believed it was on and would kill you if you touched it, and just casually leaning against it without a second thought.
I think for those sorts of people, they can live in the incredibly insular, repressive, controlling world of Orthodox Judaism, and not be mentally burned by it. But for someone like me, who takes things seriously, and really actually believes the things I say I do, I think the system itself probably often triggers or exacerbates OCD tendencies and other mental issues someone may be at risk for, but perhaps wouldn't have otherwise been so affected by without this kind of trauma.
One quick anecdote before I finish - when I was around middle school age, I developed an obsessive habit of saying a couple sort of Jewish anti-jinx phrases, either under my breath or in my head. I don't remember when I finally got over it, but I strongly remember recognizing my experiences in a habit described by Alison Bechdel in her graphic memoir, Fun Home. She discusses a period of her childhood when she developed a habit of scrawling a sort of self-protective symbol over every page of her journal. I think this kind of reaction can develop from tyrannical, controlling childhood trauma - in her case, her father; in my case, my whole world.
Without the internet, you’d have had little exposure to queer positivity or culture, and wouldn’t have had context for things like your dad’s denial reaction to your coming out. Have you ever spoken to anyone who escaped orthodoxy before the internet? How did people even... do it? CAN YOU IMAGINE?
Thinking about it is truly wild. I don't remember having specific conversations with escapees from no-internet sects of ultra-Orthodox Judaism, but if I recall correctly, I think Shulem Deen's experience, as he tells it in his memoir All Who Go Do Not Return (highly recommend!) was at least a very internet-light situation. It's been a while since I read it, but I think as he started losing his faith, he looked more and more into outside resources of information, and that may have included the internet. Possibly at the library? I seem to remember he was sneaking videos behind his wife's back at one point. I feel like he probably got a lot of information from the library. Support your local library!
PIVOT! LET'S TALK ABOUT CUTE BOYS.
ONE OF MY FAVORITE TOPICS!
We get to meet many of your crushes in these books! Are they all based on real people, or are some an amalgam?
They are all based on real people, no amalgams. In some cases, very minor details may have been changed (such as names), but I'd say 99.9% of what's in there is word-for-word how I'd tell my actual lived experience.
You juggle two crushes in middle school; Kevin seems to represent “rebellion,” from strict orthodoxy, while Nat is more comfortable and at ease with Orthodox practices. Nat seemed to have a healthier family life and therefore healthier religious associations. Do you think you’d have been slower to step away from your upbringing had your own family life been more like Nat's (i.e., less fraught and oppressive)?
Most probably! Not that you asked, but I think I also probably would have had a much higher chance of remaining religious if I were straight. The sacrifice demanded of queer folks to just remain celibate or even marry someone they're not attracted to in order to force themselves to have kids is really traumatic, and incredibly abusive. So if that major (major!) issue hadn't been around, and religion wasn't used so directly by my parents as a cudgel and means of control, there's a real possibility it might not have been overall uncomfortable enough for me to leave. Like I mention in the book, I'm naturally a rules-follower, so I definitely wanted to figure it out. There was a period of time in college, particularly after I watched the documentary Trembling Before G-d, which featured an ultra-Orthodox lesbian couple who lived together, that I thought to myself, "If I met a nice Jewish boy who wanted to remain Orthodox except for having a gay relationship," I felt like that's something I could have lived with, even after I'd stopped believing. I felt like there was just so much shared frames of reference and cultural background, that it just would have been so much easier and comfortable to date another (ex-?) Orthodox Jew. Luckily, I got over that, and I never met any such person.
Have you kept in touch with these crushes and are they still cute?
I haven't kept up with any of them since high school, but (looks them up on Facebook), I can confirm that they are still cute.
LET’S TALK MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK!
OKAY!
It occurs to me that you had NO WEEKENDS. You went to yeshiva on Saturdays and Sundays! You were never NOT IN SCHOOL. WHAT THE HELL. You wore a TIE to a sleepover. A TIE.
Hahaha, that's so true! Well, very minor correction: I went to school every day but Saturday. Saturday's Shabbos (Jewish sabbath), so like I mention in the book, there's no driving or writing or anything else required to get to, and participate in, school. But Shabbos has its own time requirements, like going to the synagogue and having a big meal every Friday night, going to the synagogue for several hours Saturday morning and having a big Shabbos lunch, and then finally going to the synagogue another one or two times (depending on how late you go) for afternoon and evening prayer, followed by a little ritual called "havdalah," which officially marks the end of Shabbos.
Then you can turn on and off lights and everything, really go crazy. Depending on time of year and your location, since Shabbos starts at sundown and ends at full nighttime (officially it's once three stars are visible in the sky), it may start and end quite early in the afternoon, or very late at night. I remember summer Saturday nights when Shabbos would end at like 9:30 pm, and I'd have missed three-quarters of the shows on SNICK (a special block of shows only on Saturday nights on Nickelodeon). And yes, I even showed up for a Shabbos sleepover in a suit and tie, because that's what we always had to wear to synagogue.
So, as you point out, I had almost no time to myself! Especially after you count things like homework and time eating meals. Of course, I did manage to find time to play video games, use the internet, see movies, read comics—especially that last one, since I couldn't do any of the others during Shabbos—but there were almost never opportunities to just hang out in my local neighborhood, go to a park, and be a kid. I'm still pretty bitter about that!
When some of your friends become more religious and it draws them apart from their relationships, it’s socially acceptable. The inverse was basically how your trajectory went. What’s up with Oren? He “became more religious,” but then Ezra thought he was gay - was he???
Well, spoiler alert, but yes, Oren is gay! He's my close friend, and he was even at my wedding! He ended up becoming less religious senior year, and then much more so in college. We didn't really become close friends until after high school. Like I mentioned in the book, while Ezra and I were good friends, the rest of the group were also each friends with Ezra, and not as much with each other? Although when I joined the group in tenth grade, they all already knew each other from middle school, so I may be wrong about that detail.
But anyhow, yes! This book went through several versions, lengths, and ways of organizing the story. The final BIG change was to essentially cut the book in half and end it right before senior year of high school (whoops, spoiler). Originally, I'd planned on the story going through the end of college, when I got my first real full-time job and achieved true financial independence - and therefore, actual freedom. That second half of the story was going to touch on this part of my experiences, including Oren's "fall from grace" as it were, and our developing our own friendship. Perhaps if this book is successful enough, there could be a follow-up book?
How do you feel about people from the Orthodox community reaching out to you after this book is published? People from your past? Did you reach out to anyone you wrote about? A big part of this book is detaching from the need for the community's approval, which I think is reflective in how you approached this story.
Regarding people from the Orthodox community reaching out - I'm completely open to anyone letting me know what they thought, or even if they wanted to have a conversation (especially if it's someone I actually knew growing up). But obviously I don't feel any need for their approval, I just think it would be really interesting to know what they think. I actually saw a review on Goodreads the other day from a queer Orthodox Jew who, let's say, didn't exactly agree with my perspective or portrayal (which I thought was pretty fair, actually).
I actually have heard from a couple people - the ninth grade rabbi I came out to DM'ed ME ON TWITTER (wild)! And a guy who was a couple years older than me but went to the same schools and synagogue I went to, and who knew my older brothers, is now a rabbi with a podcast (also wild), and he was extremely complimentary! So I'm sure reactions will be all over the map.
Did you see that thing about the Chabad-Lubavitch home-dug tunnel???
I DID see the thing about the tunnel, it was bizarre but honestly not too surprising for me, based on what I've seen in the past!
The story ends on a high note - discovering friendships and romance outside of orthodoxy, but the untangling of that extrication is, obviously, more complicated and can draw itself out. What made you choose to end the story where you did? Do you have further explorations to make on this subject in future comics?
Like I mentioned above, the original version of this iteration of the comic actually went on twice as long (I can't even imagine having drawn double the amount of pages; I'd still be drawing!), but when we decided to end it here, it felt like a good arc, and a beautiful, hopeful note to end on. I revised and extended that chapter quite a bit to make it feel more like the end of a book, and less like just the end of a chapter, and I made a couple more edits elsewhere in the book too - I added two new pages, and revised various lines of dialogues to add more context. My main concern was that despite the name of the book, I didn't actually come to accepting atheism until I was in college. So, I tried to drop more hints and foreshadow that more than I had done previously. I hope it was enough! If given the opportunity, I'd love to continue the story in the future.
The post Artists in Conversation: Lucy Knisley Interviews Lonnie Mann appeared first on The Comics Journal.
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