The Welcome Table Book Club: Deacon King Kong

Join us for coffee and conversation as we dive into James McBride's celebrated novel Deacon King Kong, winner of the Andrew Carnegie Medal, the Gotham Book Prize, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and the Thurber Prize. Available wherever books are sold and from the Free Library of Philadelphia.

In September 1969, a fumbling, cranky old church deacon known as Sportcoat shuffles into the courtyard of the Cause Houses housing project in south Brooklyn, pulls a .38 from his pocket, and, in front of everybody, shoots the project’s drug dealer at point-blank range.
In Deacon King Kong, McBride brings to vivid life the people affected by the shooting: the victim, the African-American and Latinx residents who witnessed it, the white neighbors, the local cops assigned to investigate, the members of the Five Ends Baptist Church where Sportcoat was deacon, the neighborhood’s Italian mobsters, and Sportcoat himself.
As the story deepens, it becomes clear that the lives of the characters—caught in the tumultuous swirl of 1960s New York—overlap in unexpected ways. When the truth does emerge, McBride shows us that not all secrets are meant to be hidden, that the best way to grow is to face change without fear, and that the seeds of love lie in hope and compassion.
Told with insight and wit, Deacon King Kong demonstrates that love and faith live in all of us.

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