Deacon King Kong

All the stars. I loved every single second of this audiobook.14 hours that I truly savored and didn't want to end. I laughed and smiled and shook my head and cathartic cried. James McBride & Dominic Hoffman - this writing, this humanity, this story weaving and performance - thank you, this is a masterpiece.

I had fun with this, it was full of character and even had a good handful of scenes written in such a way that they played out really well cinematically in my mind's eye. I find myself without too much to say about it, I enjoyed it and I might read something else by McBride now, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend running out to eat this.

Bit of a roller coaster: starts off pretty awful, with characters who are tedious unselfaware automatons. Then a quarter of the way in it gets promising, with hints of inner life, complexity, nuance — not really believable, but I felt willing to go with it — and then it just seesaws back and forth, with moments of lucidity and reflection amid a baseline of vapidity.

There's romance: two independent (and laughably improbable) love-at-first-sight tropes. Slapstick: the multiple last-minute escapes from the hired goon are played for humor, right? Intrigue, and Preaching, and Flawed But Basically Decent People, and a Nice Pat Wrapping-Up at the end.

It was almost three stars, but the frequent pattern of characters Mutually Understanding Each Other wore me out. That's adolescent wishful-thinking connection, not messy real-world connection.

I love James McBride's writing style. Every word is intentional and although not that easy to skim, it really forces you to slow down and take in every word. He's gifted in how he makes such FUN, memorable, and quirky characters. This was a unique read that I found delightful, especially the ant subplot.

Deacon Cuffy “Sportcoat” Lambkin walks out into the plaza of the Causeway Housing Projects, bombed on homemade King Kong and shoots 19 year old drug dealer Deems Clements' ear clean off. Despite not remembering a thing about the incident, Deacon “King Kong” is clearly a dead man walking.

Despite its pulpy start, this is really a golden hued memory of growing up in the projects in the late 1960's. While Spielberg defined the 80's in suburban America, this is McBride's recollection of growing up in Red Hook Brooklyn where his parents founded the New Brown Memorial Baptist Church.

It's a vibrant multi-cultured community where the Irish cop is honest and in love with the black minister's wife, where the Italian smuggler wants nothing more than to settle down with a plump wife but still lives with his mother who gardens with the drunk black deacon. Where the Dominican numbers runner is honest and the drug dealers leave the plaza empty till noon so the churchgoers can gossip around the flagpole.

It's also about second chances late in life and the possibility of love. It's a far warmer story than the opening would have you believe and in McBride's hands that's still a great thing. Throw in a McGuffin or two, some botched assassinations, some miracle cheese and an army of red ants and you've got a rose coloured recollection of growing up in the Brooklyn projects from an accomplished storyteller.