Deacon King Kong

"Who might like this? Brooklynites, music lovers, baseball fans, housing project dwellers (or expats), students of urban decay, people in need of a laugh – have I left anybody out? This insane jazzy riff from musician/author/National Book Award winner James McBride brings all those folks in and then some. Set in a (fictional) Brooklyn housing project in 1969, it follows the doings of the hard-drinking Sportcoat and his one-time baseball prospect-turned-heroin dealer Deems Clemens. McBride opens the book with Sportcoat shooting Clemens’ ear off – for reasons that only become more or less clear in its final pages (no fair peeking ahead!) after twists and turns that bring in mobsters, white beat cops, church folks – you get the idea. Journalists are often frustrated and frustrating in the way the work flattens people out – especially marginalized people. McBride fills people back up and out again and makes them whole."