Book Review: "Deacon King Kong" by James McBride

By Faye Herold, Co-Chair, Library Committee, originally published in the December 2022 issue of  the 1666 Coffman Newsletter

The scene: A housing project in Brooklyn called the Causeway, “where 3,500 Black and Spanish residents crammed their dreams, nightmares…children, parents and…cousins into 256 tiny apartments, all living under the thumb of the wonderfully corrupt New York City Housing Authority….”

The characters: Sister Veronica Gee—wife of the minister at Five Ends Baptist Church; Dominic LaFleur—the Haitian Cooking Sensation; Sister Bibb—the voluptuous church organist; Rufus Harley—maker of King Kong, a specially enjoyable blend of white lightning; the Elephant (Tommy Elefante)—Italian owner of construction and trucking businesses known for legal and illegal movement of merchandise; Deems Clemens, age nineteen—once the best player on the Cause’s baseball team, now the local provider of illegal drugs; Hot Sausage—the Cause House’s janitor and Sportcoat’s best friend; Sportcoat 

(Deacon Cuffy Lambkin)—our rarely sober, likeable victim and hero; Sportcoat’s late wife Hetty; and a large supporting cast.

The questions: Why did Sportcoat shoot Deems Clemens in the ear, right in the middle of the project Plaza? Where is the missing Christmas Club money? Will the Elephant ever find true love?

The problems: drugs, alcohol, poverty, prison. Beneath their ever-present anger and antagonisms, the inhabitants of the Cause Houses care about each other. Although we’re sheltered from the worst that happens, this is a side of 1960s New York City we don’t often see—a mix of Italian, Irish, Black and white, hating and loving.

​Hilarious and tragic, romantic and adversarial—as several plot threads weave together, finally, it’s the language that draws you in and holds you to the end, as the Irish Sergeant Potts, when confronted with the graceful presence of Sister Gee, feels “all the formal police training in the world was useless when the smile of someone you suddenly care about finds the bow that wraps your heart and undoes it.” You will care, too.  ​