After coming out as gay, Craig Hoyle was excommunicated from the New Zealand Exclusive Brethren and forced to say goodbye to his family forever. The conservative sect was everything he’d ever known: a childhood where television, pop music, sports and even pets were against the rules. Joining public society for the first time, Excommunicated follows Craig’s journey to meet his grandfather who was excommunicated in the 1980s. Uncovering two centuries and seven generations of the family’s tangled and often cruel relationship with the Brethren, Craig weaves the past and present into his heartwrenching multi-generational memoir. Now a news director and journalist, Craig reflects back on the “painstaking process” of leaving the Brethren and the process of writing Excommunicated with Simon Wilson.
Also at Auckland Writers Festival 2024
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