J.R. Borofsky

J.R. Borofsky was raised in conservative evangelical Christianity and studied philosophy and apologetics at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, and Dallas Baptist University. His years in evangelical education and ministry shaped his enduring interest in faith, authortiy, belonging, and the complicated ways religious communities understand love.

In his mid-twenties, he began questioning the beliefs that had defined his life. His search led him through the writings of the early Church Fathers and, eventually, into Eastern Orthodox Christianity. The questions continued, however, and after moving to New York in 2016, he gradually stopped attending church altogether and belongs to no church or religious identity.

The purpose of my writing is not to convince readers what to believe or of any one particular point of view.

I write about people trying to survive after the stories that shaped them stop making sense. I do my best to write through their point of views to present to the reader the inner turmoil they are enduring, rather than providing commentary on their events.

My hope is that readers, whether deeply religious, formerly religious, or never religious at all, find something reconizably human in those journeys.

Josh Greenburg arrives in Florida certain that a summer internship at a booming megachurch will confirm God's calling in his life. Instead, a forbidden visit to The Dirty Mermaid, a ramshackle waterfront bar frequented by sex workers, queer misfits, and everyone his church consideres lost, introduces him to a community whose messy compassion feels more like grace than anything he has ever known inside the faith.

As Josh grows closer to S ophie, a dancer dreaming of a different future, and El, the bar's fiercely protective owner, his mentor's guidance becomes increasingly controlling and the church's campaign against River's Edge turns personal. Forced to choose between the institution that gave his life meaning and the people who have taught him how to live, Josh m ust decide whether doubt is a failure of faith, or the first honest step toward becoming himself.