Author. Marine captain. Porn star. Fundamentalist survivor. Addict in recovery. Advocate for the unrepresented.
Rich Merritt has lived every one of those lives. Jennifer Egan profiled him on the cover of The New York Times Magazine in 1998, in a story about gay service members under Don't Ask, Don't Tell. His new novel Trials of a Legal Junkie and the second edition of his memoir Secrets of a Gay Marine Porn Star arrive October 6.
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Bio
Rich Merritt was raised in a strict fundamentalist Christian community in Greenville, South Carolina, and educated from elementary school through college at Bob Jones University before transferring to Clemson. He served in the United States Marine Corps from 1985 to 1998, leaving as a captain, and earned his law degree from USC in 2001. He has practiced law in Los Angeles, Atlanta, and New York, and written for the Navy-Marine Corps Times, California Lawyer, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He lives in Palm Springs, where he works as a public interest lawyer and co-hosts a video podcast on recovery, sex positivity, and the impacts of white Christian nationalism.
Books
Trials of a Legal Junkie
Trials of a Legal Junkie follows Robert Marion — a former Marine captain whose bestselling memoir has turned him into a national sensation. But behind the designer shirts and the chase for a movie deal, Rob is unraveling. Haunted by the death of his best friend and the long shadow of a fundamentalist childhood, he watches his career dissolve, his relationship collapse, and his occasional drinking harden into a lethal dependence on crystal meth …
Secrets of a Gay Marine Porn Star (Second Edition)
Here's the true story of Rich Merritt — the good son, the teacher's pet, the model Christian student who spent the first two decades of his life inside a fundamentalist cult that taught him gay people were worthy of death. The Marine captain who served under Don't Ask, Don't Tell while secretly shooting gay porn films — a dangerous rebellion against the institutions that had tried to dictate his life …
Spiritual Probation
Bob Johnson University, August 1990. Saddam Hussein has invaded Kuwait, the world feels close to apocalypse, and “Dr. Bob" is calling from the pulpit for a bulldozer to drive the United Nations headquarters into the East River. Ten thousand students applaud. Two of those hands belong to Nate O'Connor — the good son, the model Christian, the senior who has spent twenty-two years inside the only world he's ever known ...
Contact Rich
Feedback? Questions? Reach Rich directly.