Title: Deacon King Kong by James McBride
Book Beginnings quote:
Friday56 quote (from page 21, last chapter of preview):
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.
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 (Publisher).
Review: Back in December 2020 (Remember that awful year?) I was checking out this list compiled by BooksAreMyFavouriteandBest where the top 50 books of the year were listed by how many 'end-of-the-year best books' lists they ended up on. I always check out her list every year and add books to my TBR from it. Deacon King Kong was one of the top six books of 2020 based on this ranking system, being listed on around 20 end-of-the-year lists. I decided immediately that this was a book I'd likely enjoy and tried unsuccessfully several times to get my book club to select it for one of our meetings.
What is missing from the summary (above from the publisher) is the description of how funny Deacon King Kong is throughout parts of the books, and how poignant it is in other parts. Sportcoat is drunk when he shoots Deems. He doesn't mean to shoot him, he just wants Deems to quit dealing drug and come back to baseball. I know this doesn't sound funny either, but the ludicrous attempts afterward to kill or wound Sportcoat are laugh out loud funny. And so are the nicknames -- everyone has them, the language, and yes, the cheese, which has a symbolic connection.
I mention symbolism because my sister told me that she loved the book so much because of its spirituality. I must have looked at her funny when she said it because she went on to say the second half of the book is full of it and we were only on the front half at the time. She was right, of course. The book is about a cast of characters who are all living/existing in the projects in Brooklyn in the late 1960s. A group of friends started a church, Five Ends Baptist, when they immigrated from parts of the Caribbean and the deep South. In a lot of ways the book isn't so much a story of life in the projects, it is a story about a church and all the people who are touched by it. The mystery in the novel -- where is the tiny, valuable artifact? -- ends up tangled up in the church as well.
My husband and I listened to Deacon King Kong on a recent car trip. It was a lovely book to have read for us since the accents and slang had a bigger impact than if we'd read the print version separately. Don chuckled almost constantly as we drove along. I know he was enjoying the language and characters. But when I asked him later what he thought of the book he said he'd give a '3'. That shocked me, I clearly thought he was enjoying it more than that. But then he went on to explain he didn't think the mystery was very hard to solve, that he'd figured it out really early. When I pointed out that the mystery wasn't really the whole point, he countered that the mystery brought all the characters together. I, on the other hand, would give the book a solid '4.5'. I enjoyed it so much and the characters have taken up residence in my brain so I've been walking around with them for days. I almost wish the book hadn't ended when it did so I could learn more about them.
I've wondered if I should go back to book club and once again ask to have this book included onto our reading list. I decided I'll just keep it to myself. I love it and since my hubby, sister, and I discussed it I no longer have a burning desire to discuss it with anyone else.
Have you read Deacon King Kong? What did you think of it? Do you like to read books identified as the year's best? Any good ones I should know about from those lists?
-Anne
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