Deacon King Kong - A Novel

Deacon King Kong - A Novel

In Septermber 1969, an old church deacon known as Sportcoat shuffles into the courtyard of the Causeway Housing Project in South Brooklun, pulls a .38 from his pocket, and in front of everybody shoots the project's rug dealer at point-blank range.

The reasons for this burst of violence and the consequences that spring from it are at the heart of Deacon King Kong.  McBride brings to vivid lie the people affected by the shooting: the victim, the African-American and Latinx residents who witnessed it, the local cops assigned to investigate, the members of the Five Ends Baptist Church where Sportcoat was Deacon, the neighborhood's Italian mobsters, and Sportcoat himself.

Drawing from both his masterly storytelling and skills and his abiding faith in humanity, James McBride ha written an novel that's a involving a The Good Lord Bird and as emotionally honest as The Color o Water and that demonstrates that love and faith lie I all of us.