Deacon King Kong

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.