I'm on the Right Road Now

The Church of the Living God at 2029 Binney Street in Omaha, Nebraska, is young Marc L. Nichols’s second home. Nichols is well known throughout the congregation as Pastor Luke Nichols’s scamp of a son who often needs to be taught a lesson. Between his mother’s chronic illness, his father’s calling, and his status as the sixth of seven children, Marc craves attention and sometimes acts out. But Marc’s fun-filled days come to an end after his mother dies when he is ten. The family is left shaken to its core, and Marc’s relationship with his father becomes fraught as Pastor Luke struggles to take on his wife’s role in the home. Time passes, but things do not improve. His children clash with the women he meets, and he and Marc have an explosive falling out after he remarries. Angry and frustrated, Marc leaves home at the age of sixteen and doesn’t speak with his father for years. In this memoir, Marc examines his childhood and tries to reconcile the many facets of his father. Despite their past estrangement, Marc paints a picture of his father as a pious, yet occasionally flawed, man and humanizes a great pastor.