Mama's Boy, Preacher's Son
by Kevin Jennings
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Book Summary Information
Author: Kevin JenningsEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2007-06-15
ISBN: 0807071471
Number of pages: 280
Publisher: Beacon Press
Book Reviews of Mama's Boy, Preacher's Son
Book Review: Growing Up Gay
Summary: 5 Stars
Jennings, Kevin, Mama's Boy, Preacher's Son: A Memoir, Beacon Press, 2006
Growing Up Gay
Amos Lassen
"Mama's Boy, Preacher's Son" is a great new book about coming of age and growing up gay. Kevin Jennings is the founder of GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network hand has been a fighter for non discrimination in our country's schools. With his book he lets us into his life and shows us how he came to be where he is today. His father had been a fundamentalist minister who dies suddenly in the middle of his eighth birthday party and his mother had to rake o the job as breadwinner. Having been raised in a trailer part, Kevin escaped into the world of reading. School was a battle for him--he was fat, intelligent and harbored an attraction for other boys. He finally escaped his childhood by winning a scholarship to Harvard where he could use his mind and not be shunned for his sexual feelings. Upon graduation he began to teach at some of the fine private schools in Boston and was loved by his students while causing nervous feelings among the administrations because of his desire to speak openly about his lifestyle.
His book speaks of the South (he was from North Carolina) and of the evangelicalism and the racism here. He describes his mother as a "working-class feminist" who was the first woman in North Carolina to gain a management position at McDonald's. When he came out to her, even though being perplexed, she founded a gay parents' support group. It is when he writes about his mother that the book takes flight. Here is a man who loves his mother and allows that love to shine through his writings.
This is a moving literate autobiography of an amazing man. His rise from "rags to riches' is related in such a way that the reader feels he is growing with the author. It is also the story of the determination of a woman to assure that her son gets the education that she never had and her son's attempts to break free from the constraints of the homophobic South, from the bullies that made his life miserable and from the narrow minded people he encountered in his life. But it is also the story of a teacher who made it his life goal to help the youth of America to be liberated and free.
It is a narrative that doesn't just roll along--it is full of turns along the way and I find myself asking "how did he do it?" as I read. It is an unlikely success story.
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