Deacon King Kong is a historical fiction novel that appeared in 2020. Author James McBride is an iconic figure in African American literature. He’s one of those Published Authors™ who only needs to write a book every five years or so to keep up his cred. To read my other recent historical fiction book reviews, please check out:

Mistress of the Art of Death, by Ariana Franklin

Antonius, Son of Rome, by Brook Allen

Dying of Whiteness, by Jonathan Menzl

Deacon King Kong takes place in a housing project in 1969 Brooklyn. The story begins with a bang, literally. The Deacon, a seventy-something drunk otherwise known as Sportcoat, shoots infamous teenage drug dealer Deems Clemens in the face. (This is not a spoiler—it happens on page one.) The novel’s plot revolves around the story of the Deacon, Deems (who survives his shooting), and the other characters of the housing project and surrounding neighborhood.

Main Themes of Deacon King Kong

For me, the most powerful theme of Deacon King Kong was the generational conflict it described. McBride portrays 1969 as a time when life in city housing projects altered radically. The older African American residents of the project were people who came north to escape racism in the South in the 1920s and 1930s. (This is known as the Great Migration to historians.) These people were rather poor, worked manual labor-type jobs if they were lucky, and many, like the Deacon, fell prey to things like alcoholism. They also faced opposition from white ethnics who resented their presence in neighborhoods the whites regarded as “theirs.” But the people had community, a shared historical experience, and religious faith.

The younger generation, exemplified by Deems Clemens, is different. Deems was once a brilliant teenage baseball pitcher. But he drifted into slinging dope, lured by the quick money after growing up in poverty. He brought his friends along with him. The older generation of the projects could see drugs infiltrating their neighborhood and knew life there could never be the same again. McBride also implies that the “American Dream” of kids having a better material life than their parents had had was largely a myth for the (mostly colored) people of the projects.

This isn’t only true for the African Americans, however. Tommy Elefante, “the Elephant,” is an Italian criminal who runs the docks nearby to the projects. But he sees the same thing that the older projects residents do. He’s made his money smuggling things like TVs, cigarettes, and so forth, but never drugs. The Elephant knows that his time is ending, and he wants out. McBride portrays him very sympathetically. I’m not sure why, though. The Elephant got his nickname for a reason besides his last name. He’s done bad, even murderous, things. But as long as those bad things don’t include drugs, McBride seems to be okay with it.

Please Click Here to Subscribe to My History Blog!Deacon King Kong happens in Brooklyn, shown here in an 1883 illustration.

Style of Deacon King Kong

At times McBride attempts a humorous, tongue-in-cheek tone. I enjoy that, tending in that direction with my own humor. But it’s a weird choice for a book based on shooting a drug dealer. Most of the story isn’t about humorous things. So, while I liked the writing style, it did feel a little off at times.

McBride also offers plenty of sentences that, while grammatically correct, go on and on. The writing isn’t quite Thomas Jefferson-esque, but it takes some getting used to. McBride also breaks some of the “unwritten rules” in places. The first chapter, after the shooting, becomes a series of sketches of the main characters. One chapter is from the point of view of a character who never utters a single line after that chapter. Oh, to be a Published Author™ who can get away with these things in the name of mastery of craft.

In addition, the story doesn’t truly have a main character. You’d think that it’d be the deacon, Sportcoat, given that his name is the title of the book. But I’m not sure he truly qualifies, and I didn’t find him that sympathetic. He spends 95% of the book so drunk he doesn’t even believe he’s the one who shot Deems.

Which brings me to the last unusual thing I’ll mention. The book really doesn’t have a main character to root for. No one is what I’d call heroic. Not all books have to have a classic hero, I understand. I think the point McBride was going for was that in housing projects, the closest to heroic one gets is to find people who aren’t demoralized to the point of despair. People who can show humanity toward their fellow man or woman and find humor and beauty in life are heroic when placed in that environment.

McBride may well be correct here. I’ve never spent time in a housing projects environment, so it’s hard for me to say. But it did make the book suspenseful in an unusual way—I kept waiting for a character to get behind unequivocally.

Evaluation

Given all that, it’s hard for me to settle on a grade for this book. I mostly enjoyed the style of writing. A few plot twists seemed a reach to me, but the character portrayals were excellent. It was weird not having stronger resolution in places, and I’ll admit that the ending left me a little unsatisfied. But the importance of the topic and complexity of the themes offset that to some extent.

So, I’d say that you may well have quite a different reaction to Deacon King Kong than I did. I can see readers giving the book a wide range of reviews, although given the marketing blitz that accompanied the publication of Deacon King Kong, most readers think highly of it. For me, I’ll go with 8 of 10 points. I’m curious to know if anyone reading this post has also read the book and what you thought of it.

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