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PRODUCT
Deacon King Kong (Oprah’s Book Club): A Novel
Product Description:
Price:
$14.99
Detailed description:
Winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Fiction
Winner of the Gotham Book Prize
Winner of the Gotham Book Prize
One of Barack Obama’s “Favorite Books of the Year”
Oprah’s Book Club Pick
Named one of the Top Ten Books of the Year by the New York Times, Entertainment Weekly and TIME Magazine
A Washington Post Notable Novel
From the author of The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, the National Book Award–winning The Good Lord Bird, and the bestselling modern classic The Color of Water, comes one of the most celebrated novels of the year.
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 .38 from his pocket, and, in front of everybody, shoots the project’s drug dealer at point-blank range.
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. In Deacon King Kong, McBride brings to vivid life the people affected by the shooting: the victim, the African-American and Latinx residents who witnessed it, the white neighbors, 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.
As the story deepens, it becomes clear that the lives of the characters—caught in the tumultuous swirl of 1960s New York—overlap in unexpected ways. When the truth does emerge, McBride shows us that not all secrets are meant to be hidden, that the best way to grow is to face change without fear, and that the seeds of love lie in hope and compassion.
Bringing to these pages both his masterly storytelling skills and his abiding faith in humanity, James McBride has written a novel every bit as involving as The Good Lord Bird and as emotionally honest as The Color of Water. Told with insight and wit, Deacon King Kong demonstrates that love and faith live in all of us.
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Product group:
Categories: Best Books of 2024 So Far
Product name:
Deacon King Kong (Oprah’s Book Club): A Novel
Price:
$14.99
Mark –
The story is great and the writing is fantastic. Highly recommended.
CoCo –
Loved this book, Sportcoat of course was my favorite character! Author McBride is a masterful story teller; his attention to detail, character development and the way HE pulls a story together at the end and wraps it in a BOW, is amazing! I have yet to be disappointed by one of this novels!
Kindle Customer David Gardner. –
This is the second book I’ve read and loved by James McBride. The first being Heaven and Earth Grocery Store. His weaving of characters and plot make for a joyful read. Within each there were bits of history and of life that were new to me, glimpses of other cultures that helped me learn or understand more. This author is a strong voice and gift!
DJ –
“The fact is, no one in the projects really knew why Sportcoat shot Deems—not even Sportcoat himself.” (p3)
This novel has a lot in common with McBride’s more recent “The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store”; any reader who enjoyed one of the two will almost certainly like the other. Both are compelling stories about the difficult lives of a diverse group of (mostly) lower-class folks struggling to get by. Both are sad and hopeful, tragic and humorous. The major difference between the two is the setting – “Grocery Store” takes place in a small town northwest of Philadelphia, while “Deacon” sets us down in the projects of New York City.
And what a difference the setting makes! At first, I found it hard to relate to the characters in “Deacon” (murderers, mobsters, dealers, addicts), while the small-town folks in “Grocery Store” felt a little more comfortable and familiar. But here’s the thing. In both stories, McBride wants us to see the humanity in his characters and identify with their struggles. In “Grocery Store” it wasn’t hard for me to do that. But McBride pulled it off in “Deacon” as well: I recognized the murderers, mobsters, dealers, and addicts as people, found them interesting, and cared about them. I think you will too. Deep into the story, when you begin to feel it happening, it will startle you.
1stein2 –
Life is hard all around us. Good literature helps us to see the spark of deep humanity and our ability to discover humanity even in the most desparate surroundings. It gives us hope that there can be a brighter future for us if we look beyond all prejudices and biases, no matter where you see yourself in our new BIPOCW world.
Deacon King Kong is such a story. Full of heart, humor, tough reality. I was reminded of John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row which showed a deeply human community in the midst of a tough world. James McBride has given us a 2010s version of it.
This will make a great gift – for yourself, of course!
S. Smith –
To say this book had my heart from the start would be a bald-faced lie. Chapter 1 introduced so many characters, I made notes as to who was who. Even so, I couldn’t keep them straight, especially the minor characters and the drug dealers. The truth is this book infuriated me. I slammed it shut numerous times. I wanted to throw it against the wall. I rolled my eyes and complained to my husband. I interrupted my reading of it with two other books.
But I kept coming back.
This often lyrical book is set in 1969 in the Causeway Housing Projects in South Brooklyn. Fumbling, old Cuffy Lambkin, deacon of Five Ends Baptist Church, is known affectionately as Sportcoat because of the ratty sports jackets he wears. Behind his back, he’s known as Deacon King Kong for his penchant (shall we say addiction?) for the hooch his friend Rufus brews up. Like its namesake, Rufus’s King Kong carries a powerful punch, but Sportcoat drinks it like Kool-Aid. In fact, he’s so drunk when he shoots the project’s young drug dealer at point-blank range with an old .38, he doesn’t remember doing it.
But Sportcoat has a good heart. He taught Sunday School. He coached the first-ever Causeway baseball team. He works at a number of day jobs, including helping the elderly mother of a local crime boss in her garden. And he loved his wife, Hettie, but not enough.
This is a book of what-if, what-was, and what-could-be. What if Sister Paul hadn’t driven the Elephant’s father home one fateful night? What if Sportcoat had chosen moonflowers over booze? What if Deems hadn’t ended his promising future by selling heroin for his cousin? The what-was comes out in pieces, and sometimes the what-could-be actually happens. Ultimately, it’s a book of redemption.
I tried to finish the book one night but got irritated with it. The next morning I read the last chapter. I think I held my breath the entire time. Everything came together, and the last beautiful paragraph had me in tears.
This book I wanted to throw against the wall gets five shining stars.
CHARVOLEN A. –
I loved this book. Funny, touching, real…and with a message.
Dave Cooke –
Great read. It took a little energy to work through the early part of the book. Once it got going, I couldn’t put it down.
gerardpeter –
This novel was recommended by the New York Times. Once I got to know the characters, I became charmed by their stories. I was sad to reach the end but left with a warm fuzzy feeling.
It is set in Brooklyn in the housing projects where the author was born and brought up. The year is 1969, but Apollo 11 is a very long way off. It is cleverly referenced by the moonflowers growing in the empty lots of Red Hook. And cheese!
The story begins with a shooting, introducing us to the victim, Deems, and the shooter, an eccentric old man, nicknamed Deacon King Kong after his preferred illicit brew. This is only one of several plot lines played out by a wonderful cast of characters, managed beautifully by the author. James MacBride gives the best lines to the old people.
The Cause Houses are grim as heroin moves into an abandoned community. The Italians who came to work the docks are [almost] all gone, and the wharfs are used by smugglers. Heroin is coming in on the tide. Most of the characters bemoan the decline, but the little gospel church, Five Ends Baptist, stands strong and traditional values are held firm by the older female congregants. They have faith and the story offers hope.
There are similarities with Visitation Street by Ivy Pochoda, also set in Red Hook, with a diverse cast and a great read.
Dunner86 –
James McBride creates characters that break your heart and make you laugh and burrow into your soul, characters so real they have become three-dimensional in my memory. And his gift of redemption to them all in some way and in some form makes me weep with joy. I stared at the last page with sorrow, so sad the story had come to an end.
Gayle Larson –
There were many endearing characters, and some cute slap stick parts. But overall, it was just there.
Dianne Ferris –
This author never disappoints.
Good enough for use in any book club
dj in Alexandria –
Held and guided by a masterful writer who introduced me to a world of people, places, and trouble. I felt like I was there. It was real. It was raw. It was rough. And somehow it was joyous.