Liralen's Reviews > The Reappearing Act: Coming Out on a College Basketball Team Led By Born-Again Christians

Fagan was a student—and basketball player—at the University of Colorado when she realised that she was gay. It was an inopportune time and place for the realisation: while it's not clear from the book how religious/conservative the university and town were, her team was dominated by a crew of evangelical Christians who were very, very clear about where they stood on the subject of sexuality.

The book's subtitle indicates that this is a coming-out story, but in many ways it's more of a staying-in-the-closet story. Fagan came out to herself, and to select friends and family members, few of whom reacted as she might have hoped. At the same time, she worked to keep her sexuality a secret from the majority of the team. It's not until the end of the book that Fagan discusses (sums up, really) getting to a point where she was actually comfortable with, and open about, her sexuality. That's not a criticism of Fagan herself, of course, but I suspect it might have been a stronger book had it been structured differently, with a bit more time given to the after-university period.

I wonder, too, where these teammates are now, and how their own views have changed. Would they think that if they (or Fagan) had just prayed harder, things would have turned out differently? Honestly, it sounds like, if the basketball team had been less conservative/more accepting, Fagan might have stuck with the religious end of things. Would her teammates have seen that as better or worse than her being closeted and constantly afraid/guilty? Writing-wise, this didn't do much for me, but there's a fair amount of food for thought.