Confessions of a Preacher’s Kid
Confessions of a Preacher’s Kid is a fictionalized memoir about growing up as a preacher’s kid in a small town in North Carolina. The book is written from the perspective of eight-year-old Tommy McManus and is set in 1954 in the town of Cramer Village on the Southbend River.
Tommy is a precocious child who is first seen falling through the ceiling of the Riverbend Baptist church as his father is preaching a Sunday morning sermon. From this first incident through many more Tommy both participates and observes humorous and sometimes touching developments in the pastoral lives of his father (Louis) and his mother (Mary).
Ahead of their time in many ways, the McManus family has close ties to friends and associates in Baltimore, an even smaller village just across the river and a community of color. Louis has a faithful relationship with the Reverend M.V. Miller who serves the AME Zion Church in Baltimore. Tommy develops similar friendships and brings the two communities together.
One of the highlights of the year is a visit by a radio preacher who turns misfortune into a mesmerizing sermon for the congregation. The book ends with Tommy’s father and the local rabbi joining together to sing songs to hospital patients on Christmas Day. One of the songs is the 23rd Psalm which is sung in Aramaic and English. As Tommy rides home with his father later that day he realizes how blessed he has been to be a preacher’s kid. Like the Psalmist, he says to himself, The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
Reviews
“Confessions of a Preacher’s Kid will take you back to a time when our lives were less cluttered with gadgets, but were filled with important and interesting relationships. Whether you grew up as a preacher’s kid, or not, you’ll enjoy these confessions of one who did.” — W. Porter Rhoton, III, son of Rev. Wilson P. Rhoton, Jr.
“Confessions of a Preacher’s Kid” brought back memories to another kid fortunate to be a Cramerton preacher’s kid. I, too, crawled through the church attic to look out of the steeple on people and houses below. I looked forward to snitching the leftover communion ‘juice,’ hoping it would be real wine, making toy airplanes from old bulletins and water fights in the church basement. Of course, there are some things that are better left ‘unconfessed.'” — Rev. Doug King, son of the late Rev. Bob King
“Much to any reader’s delight, Michael McMahan has finally come clean with the true confessions of a pre-puberty preacher’s kid growing up in a southern mill village in the 50s. They ring clear as a church bell, at least to this PK who grew up in a Lutheran parsonage a decade earlier. We’re treated to a charming portrait of a lively childhood in a home that by divine necessity ran counter to the prevailing culture, yet embraces the people of that culture.” — Rev. C. Peter Setzer, son of the late Rev. Roy B. Setzer