The release date for the English version of 'Deacon King Kong' by
James McBride is Mar 2020. If you enjoy this novel, it is available for buy as a paperback from Barnes & Noble or Indigo, as an ebook on the Amazon Kindle store, or as an audiobook on Audible.
A grumpy, elderly church deacon named Sportcoat enters the Cause Houses housing project in south Brooklyn in September 1969. He takes out a.38 handgun from his pocket and kills the project's drug dealer in front of everyone at close range.
The people impacted by the shooting are vividly brought to life in McBride's Deacon King Kong: the victim, the African-American and Latinx neighbours who saw it, the white neighbours, the local police assigned to conduct an investigation, the members of the Five Ends Baptist Church where Sportcoat served as a deacon, the Italian mafia in the area, and Sportcoat himself.
The lives of the characters—trapped in the turbulent whirl of 1960s New York—overlap in unforeseen ways as the tale goes on. When the truth does come to light, McBride demonstrates to us that not all secrets are intended to be kept a secret, that facing change head-on without fear is the greatest way to develop, and that compassion and hope are the seeds of love.