The Battle of Concord

>> MAMA'S BOY, PREACHER'S SON by Kevin Jennings (Beacon Press, 267 pages, $24.95) In this gripping memoir, Jennings, a preacher’s son from a trailer park family, recalls the torture he endured as a gay boy in North Carolina public schools before escaping to Harvard and becoming a teacher at the progressive Concord Academy. But he couldn’t escape bigotry even in Massachusetts, spurring him to revolutionize the state’s education system by creating the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network, now a national program. Full of witty insights on Baptist ideology and honesty in the vein of Jonathan Franzen, the teacher turned activist preaches a hopeful sermon. —Courtney Cox