CHOSEN BY BARACK OBAMA AS A FAVOURITE READ OF 2020
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AND OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK
TOP TEN BOOKS OF 2020, NEW YORK TIMES and WASHINGTON POST

‘A hilarious, pitch-perfect comedy set in the Brooklyn projects of the late 1960s. This alone may qualify it as one of the year’s best novels.’ The Washington Post 

From the winner of a National Book Award and author of the bestselling memoir,The Color of Water, and The Good Lord Bird, a TV series starring Ethan Hawke

The year is 1969. In a housing project in south Brooklyn, a shambling old church deacon called Sportcoat shoots – for no apparent reason – the local drug-dealer who used to be part of the church’s baseball team. The repercussions of that moment draw in the whole community, from Sportcoat’s best friend – Hot Sausage – to the local Italian mobsters, the police (corrupt and otherwise), and the stalwart ladies of the Five Ends Baptist Church.

DEACON KING KONG is a book about a community under threat, about the ways people pull together in an age when the old rules are being rewritten. It is very funny in places, and heartbreaking in others. From a prize-winning storyteller, this New York Times bestseller shows us that not all secrets are meant to be hidden, and that the communities we build are fragile but vital.
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‘Deacon King Kong is deeply felt, beautifully written and profoundly humane; McBride’s ability to inhabit his characters’ foibled, all-too-human interiority helps transform a fine book into a great one’ The New York Times Book Review