Like them, he telegraphs his intentions through the use - or better yet, the reinvention - of history, which as “Deacon King Kong” progresses becomes a kind of floating opera, touching but not always overlapping with events as they occurred. But its tinge of absurdity indicates that McBride is operating in the realm of social allegory, a lineage that extends back through generations of writers: Ralph Ellison, Terry Southern, Darius James.

It’s a tragicomic moment, marking the way Sportscoat engages (or fails to) with the world. The reasons for this desperate burst of violence and the consequences that spring from it lie at the heart of Deacon King Kong, James McBride's funny, moving novel and his first since his National Book Award-winning The Good Lord Bird. 38 from his pocket, and in front of everybody shoots the project's drug dealer at point-blank range. In September 1969, a fumbling, cranky old church deacon known as Sportcoat shuffles into the courtyard of the Cause Houses housing project in south Brooklyn, pulls a. ' felt, beautifully written, and profoundly humane.' - The New York Times Book Review cover 'Hilarious.A rich and vivid multicultural history.' - Time Magazine From James McBride, author of the National Book Award-winning The Good Lord Bird and the bestselling modern classic The Color of Water, one of the most anticipated novels of the year: a wise and witty tale about what happens to the witnesses of a shooting. In Deacon King Kong, McBride brings to vivid

Deacon King Kong by James McBride