Deacon King Kong
This novel is set in a Brooklyn housing project called the Cause in 1969. The eponymous protagonist (also called Sportcoat), a widowed alcoholic and deacon at the local Baptist church, commits a crime that puzzles everyone who knows him. But this is not a crime novel: it is a love song for an unusual community. Even though the individuals inhabiting the Cause have nicknames as interesting as their backstories, they only matter insofar as they relate to one another.
This is not a typical historical novel: events outside the Cause don’t merit much attention. What matters to this community is when one of their own gets in trouble or goes missing, not which president is in office or Neil Armstrong landing on the moon. The history that does matter to them is that of their local church and even that of the dreaded red ants that infest the neighborhood (McBride playfully traces the history of these ants back to 1951 Colombia).
The community has what one character thinks of as “that projects look: the sadness, the suspicion, the weariness, the knowledge that came from living a special misery in a world of misery.” But along with the substance abuse, crime, and poverty, McBride also captures powerful glimmers of hope in this tight-knit group. The large cast of characters confused me at times, but when I stopped trying to remember everyone and just let the story flow around me, rather like listening to an orchestra without trying to identify separate instruments, I enjoyed it. I also appreciated McBride’s snappy, rhythmic narrative voice that beautifully captures his characters’ idiosyncrasies.
