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  • Published: 3 March 2020
  • ISBN: 9780593171837
  • Imprint: Random House Diversified
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 535
  • RRP: $70.00

Deacon King Kong

Barack Obama Favourite Read & Oprah's Book Club Pick




A New York Times bestseller about community, race and religion from the National Book Award winner, James McBride

From James McBride, author of the National Book Award-winning The Good Lord Bird: a captivating novel about what happens to the witnesses of a shooting in a Brooklyn housing project.

In September 1969, a broken-down former church deacon known as Sportcoat shuffled into the courtyard of the Cause Houses housing project in South Brooklyn, pulled out a .45, and in front of everybody shot the neighborhood drug dealer at point-blank range.

The reasons for this burst of violence and the consequences of it lie at the heart of Deacon King Kong, James McBride's new novel. In Deacon King Kong, McBride explores the lives of the people touched by the shooting: the victim, the neighbors who witnessed it, the cops assigned to investigate what happened, the members of the church where Sportcoat was deacon, and Sportcoat himself. It soon becomes clear that the lives of these characters overlap in unexpected ways, and as their stories unfold, McBride reveals that what's secret needn't be hidden forever, and that the way to grow is to face change without fear.

Bringing both his masterly storytelling skills and his abiding faith in humanity to the page, James McBride has written a novel that is every bit as involving as The Good Lord Bird and as emotionally honest as The Color of Water. Told with insight, wit and compassion, Deacon King Kong demonstrates that love, fear and faith live in all of us.

  • Published: 3 March 2020
  • ISBN: 9780593171837
  • Imprint: Random House Diversified
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 535
  • RRP: $70.00

About the author

James McBride

James McBride is the author of the award-winning New York Times bestsellers, The Color of Water and The Good Lord Bird, which is currently being made into a television series starring Ethan Hawke. A former reporter for The Washington Post and People magazine, McBride holds a Masters degree in journalism from Columbia University and a B.A. from Oberlin College. In 2015 he was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Barack Obama.

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