Deacon King Kong Summary
James McBride

Deacon King Kong Overview

James McBride's novel Deacon King Kong is a historical fiction novel set in 1969 in Brooklyn, NY, at the fictional Causeway Housing Projects, or the Cause as the novel usually refers to it. Told from the perspective of an omniscient third-person narrator, Cuffy "Sportcoat" Lambkin, an elderly Deacon at the nearby Five Ends Baptist Church struggling with alcoholism, inexplicably shoots 19-year-old Deems Clemens, a local drug dealer and one-time baseball player. As the residents of the Cause, the Church members, the police, and Deems's criminal associates struggle to make sense of the shooting, they also reckon with the changing neighborhood and an uncertain future. Deacon King Kong explores themes like race, prejudice, class, addiction, and community.