Deacon King Kong

James McBride’s novel opens in 1969 as Sportcoat, an aging, hard-drinking church deacon in a Brooklyn housing project, inexplicably shoots a young drug dealer in front of everyone. From that single act McBride spins a warm, teeming comedy of the project’s residents, cops, mobsters, and churchgoers, uncovering old secrets and unexpected grace. It is a big-hearted, funny portrait of a community holding together.