Doubting Thomas

Thomas McGurrin is a fourth-grade teacher and openly gay man at a private primary school serving Portland, Oregon's wealthy progressive elite when he is falsely accused of inappropriately touching a male student. The accusation comes just as Thomas is thrust back into the center of his unusual family by his younger brother's battle with cancer. Although cleared of the accusation, Thomas is forced to resign from a job he loves during a potentially life-changing family drama.
 
Matthew Clark Davison's novel explores the discrepancy between the progressive ideals and persistent negative stereotypes among the privileged regarding social status, race, and sexual orientation and the impact of that discrepancy on friendships and family relations.
 
By turns rueful, humorous, angry, and wise, Doubting Thomas marks the debut of an important writer.

"An electrifying debut. Doubting Thomas is one of those novels where you return to passages, again and again, to see exactly how the author pulled off an ingenious sleight-of-hand. Matthew Clark Davison is a force to be reckoned with." Armistead Maupin

"A novel of this depth and vigor, this liveliness, would be notable coming from any writer; the fact that it's Matthew Clark Davison's first is a clear indication of marvels yet to come." Michael Cunningham, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Hours

"A wrenching professional crisis becomes the occasion for a man to reckon with everything that made him who he is — the loves of his past, his family, the very job he's in danger of losing. Is it possible to emerge from such a moment with hope and an open heart? The extremely talented Matthew Clark Davison offers an answer in the form of this very beautiful novel." Ann Packer, author of The Dive From Clausen's Pier

"How do you go on after one rough year, after the end of a relationship, an illness in the family, and a false accusation, which leads to multiple betrayals from the community that once nourished you? Matthew Clark Davison's absorbing, electric Doubting Thomas knows that just when you think the losses are behind you, more are on the way, and yet some losses are entangled with unexpected offerings: a fresh way to see, a chance to be of purpose again, and an invitation to love. A searing, candid debut." Paul Lisicky, author of Later: My Life at the Edge of the World

Watch the Powell’s virtual event with Matthew Clark Davison and T Kira Mahealani Madden!

Matthew Clark Davison is a writer and educator living in San Francisco. He earned a BA and MFA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University, where he now teaches full-time. His prose has been recently anthologized in Empty The Pews and 580-Split, and published in Guernica, The Atlantic Monthly, Foglifter, Lumina Magazine, Fourteen Hills, Per Contra, Educe, and others; and has been recognized with a Creative Work Grant, (Inaugural Awardee/San Francisco State University), Cultural Equities Grant (San Francisco Arts Commission), the Clark Gross Award for a Novel-in-Progress, and a Stonewall Alumni Award.