Alex Sanchez

Alex Sanchez recently appeared at Washington's Lambda Rising to promote his new book ,The God Box.' (Photo by Bill Hitz)
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Arlington-born author Alex Sanchez recently appeared at Washington's Lambda Rising to promote his new book ,The God Box.' (Photo by Bill Hitz)
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By Alex Sanchez
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In his novel "The God Box," local author Alex Sanchez tells the story of a closeted Christian teen, whose world view is turned upside down when a gay Christian friend helps him see that those two identities are not mutually exclusive.

"The God Box" is the tale of two Mexican-Americans living in small-town Texas.Paul is a good Christian who studies the Bible, abstains from sex with his girlfriend Angie and has male-oriented sex dreams that he can barely even share with himself.Manuel is the handsome new kid at school who recently moved from Dallas because of his mother's job.Out, proud and intent on starting a Gay/Straight Alliance at the school, Manuel slowly helps Paul find the courage to be who he really is.

"People always want to know how autobiographical this is," says Sanchez, who was born in Mexico and grew up in Arlington, Va. "Paul represents the struggle I went through to reconcile my sexuality and my faith, and Manuel is the point I've gotten to in terms of having integrated and reconciled that."

The obstacles Paul faces are many, from disapproving friends to an ill-conceived meeting with a local "ex-gay," and while Sanchez himself didn't come out in high school, he remembers the experience of being a closeted gay Christian and lets that inform the book.

"During high school, I was pretty depressed and shut down," Sanchez says.
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"Robert Frost said, ,No tears for the writer, no tears for the reader,'" Sanchez says."When I'm writing a manuscript, I work on it until I get to the point where I can cry with the readers.Much of this was looking at how much pain is caused by people who make judgments based on a skewed understanding of the Bible, how that does hurt us and how it hurt me."

Despite the anti-gay stance of many conservative religious organizations, Sanchez says he hasn't received any negative feedback on the book, adding that a number of gay and gay-friendly religious networks have supported "The God Box."