Deacon King Kong

The sheer volume of invention in Deacon King Kong commands awe…And the sentences! The prose radiates a kind of chain-reaction energy. * NEW YORKER *
Deacon King Kong is full of heart, humor, and compassion…I say we give him another National Book Award for this one. It’s that good. * NPR *
Deacon King Kong reaffirms James McBride’s position among the greatest American storytellers of our time. * BOOKPAGE *
Hilarious…A rich and vivid multicultural history. * TIME *
Perhaps you wouldn’t expect your next great read to be a sort of comic opera set in a Brooklyn housing project circa 1969 starring a drink-addled church deacon named Sportcoat, his best friend Hot Sausage and a melancholic amateur gardener with mafia ties known as the Elephant. Best put on your seat belt, because McBride (The Good Lord Bird, Five-Carat Soul) will take you on a fast, funny, farcical ride. * WASHINGTON POST *
McBride is operating in the realm of social allegory, a lineage that extends back through generations of writers: Ralph Ellison, Terry Southern, Darius James. Like them, he telegraphs his intentions through the use — or better yet, the reinvention — of history, which as Deacon King Kong progresses becomes a kind of floating opera, touching but not always overlapping with events as they occurred. * LA TIMES *
Deacon King Kong cements McBride as a master storyteller. * SHELF AWARENESS *
Dazzling, spiritually rich. * OPRAH magazine *
Peopled with wondrously quirky and charismatic individuals…both hilarious and affecting, the patter a treat, and in wise, drunk, old Sportcoat James McBride has given us a character for the ages. * BIG ISSUE *

James McBride is the author of the award-winning New York Times bestsellers, The Color of Water and The Good Lord Bird, which is currently being made into a television series starring Ethan Hawke. A former reporter for The Washington Post and People magazine, McBride holds a Masters degree in journalism from Columbia University and a B.A. from Oberlin College. In 2015 he was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Barack Obama.

James McBride is also the author of the New York Times-bestselling Oprah’s Book Club selection Deacon King Kong, the National Book Award-winning The Good Lord Bird, the American classic The Color of Water, the novels Song Yet Sung and Miracle at St. Anna, the story collection Five-Carat Soul, and Kill ‘Em and Leave, a biography of James Brown. The recipient of a National Humanities Medal and an accomplished musician, McBride is also a distinguished writer in residence at New York University.

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