William Dameron’s emotional and unflinchingly honest memoir of coming out of the closet late in life, owning up to the past, and facing the future. He confronts steroid addiction, the shame and homophobia of his childhood, the sledgehammer of secrets that slowly tore his marriage apart, and his love for a gay father of three that would once again challenge the boundaries of trust. At the true heart of THE LIE is a universal story about turning self-doubt into self-acceptance and about pain, anger, and the long journey of both seeking and granting forgiveness.

Dameron began writing THE LIE after creating a personal blog to detail his life after coming out and finding a life he never believed possible. One of his blog posts was picked up by the Huffington Post, and he began to hear from strangers struggling with many of the same experiences as they too came out. Soon thereafter, the New York Times Modern Love column ran his piece “After 264 Haircuts, a Marriage Ends,” which proved to be one of their most popular essays of the year. Dameron also wrote about how his face was used as “catfish bait” for many years, in a well-received essay in Salon.

THE LIE is a powerful and candid memoir of denial, stolen identities, betrayal, faking it, and coming out. In a strange twist, Dameron currently works in cybersecurity, where his focus is on social engineering and identity theft. June 2019 marks the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising in New York City, widely seen as the most important event leading up to the gay liberation movement and the modern fight for LGBT rights in the United States.