McBride’s
novel is a rich
and vivid
multicultural
historybickering church ladies collecting coins
for the Christmas Club box; mothers
washing the soiled clothes of other
people’s children; weathered gangsters
sending quality cheese to the projects.
McBride positions Deacon King Kong
on the precipice of a profound histori-
cal moment: as he illustrates, these knit-
together old neighborhoods fell away
after broader societal and urban shifts,
not just in New York but around the
country, beginning in the
1970s after the deaths of civil
rights leaders and change-
makers. In the new world,
there would be nothing so
uniting as a town drunk and
his love and loathing for the
promising ballplayer who
turns to drugs. McBride’s
novel is a rich and vivid multicultural
history. But he also depicts the vulner-
ability of men who show most of the
world only their gruff exteriors, rendered
with rare and memorable tenderness. □on a sepTemBer day in 1969, in The
projects of Brooklyn, a drunken dea-
con named Sportcoat shoots the local
drug dealer, Deems. The community—
an ensemble of black, Puerto Rican,
Italian and Irish characters, reflect-
ing the diversity that has always made
New York City distinct—reacts to the
shooting with a combination of gossip,
embellishment of details and reflec-
tion on what it means for their home.
But Sportcoat’s actions
also set into motion an
under ground network of
mobsters and malcon-
tents, along with cops and
church folk, all trying to
get to the bottom of how
a washed-up deacon came
to shoot a young man he
once coached in baseball.
On its surface, Deacon King Kong is
about the tension between wayward
souls and those on the straight and nar-
row. But on a deeper level, James
McBride’s first novel since
his National Book Award–
winning The Good Lord Bird is
about our deep and complex
relationships to the places and
people who make us who we
are, and how we change—
either in spite or because
of them. The tie that binds
every one in these pages is
how they strive for a life that
is safe and steeped in love.
Many find that in their faith;
a few manage to find it in
one another.
Readers of The Good
Lord Bird will recognize
shades of McBride’s hi-
larious dialogue and an
attention to detail that
reveal a complex local
history. Capturing hu-
manity through satire
and witticisms, McBride
draws every day heroes :REVIEW
A troubling day in the neighborhood
By Joshunda SandersREVIEW
A creative
coming-of-age
In the mornings, aspiring
novelist Casey Peabody tries
not to think about her student
debt, her ex-lover or her
dead mother. Doing so would
distract Casey, the narrator of
Lily King’s Writers & Lovers,
from the task at hand:
finishing the manuscript
she’s been laboring over for
six years.
The 31-year-old restaurant
server remains determined
to complete her novel, even
as the friends she’s met
in workshops and writers’
retreats are becoming less
committed to their craft.
Casey watches her peers build
their lives as she continues
to chase her dream, working
to make ends meet and
living in a mildewy garage
turned apartment.
Beyond illustrating
the gritty frustrations that
accompany grand ambition
of any kind, King—author of
the acclaimed 2014 novel
Euphoria—captures the
struggles unique to the writing
process. Casey not only dwells
on the difficulties she faces
in beginning a draft but also
grows completely overwhelmed
once she’s done, feeling “wide
open and skinless.”
Writers & Lovers accelerates
as Casey finds inspiration
in two affairs: one with a
novelist, and another with a
student from the novelist’s
class. But her feelings for the
two men introduce more chaos
into her already unstable life,
forcing her to face her many
disappointments. In the end,
it may be her writing, the thing
that has held her back, that
carries her through.
TAYLOR: BILL ADAMSÑAnnabel Gutterman
▷ McBride is the author of
six other books, including a
James Brown biography89