It's an incident that sets off a lot of our story, but it's really about a community and how people learn to get along and how the community is about to change before drugs, I mean, before crack and all of that.ĪW: Was the choice of the year very pivotal for you, with 1969 being such a loaded time? JM: It's just a story of a community of people who know each other and who are all tied together by this wacky event that took place where the old deacon from the church, the old drunk, the neighborhood drunk, and who's this good-natured guy was walks around placid on time, gets soused and just pulls out his pea shooter and just fires it at the local drug dealer, and he causes a big ruckus. I suppose I could do it, but what do you say? If you’ve seen Law & Order, what else is there to do? It's not a crime novel.ĪW: How would you describe it without trying to pin it down to one thing? If I sat down to write a crime novel, I wouldn't be able to do it. I don't think I'm good enough to write a crime novel. I mean, it's certainly set off with a crime, but no, I don't think of it as a crime novel. But in fact, I think it's dangerous if you just classify your work as this or that. I've seen it described as a crime novel, but it's also filled with vibrant characters in your hilarious prose. It then follows how the shooting affects the witnesses, the victim, ancillary characters who are not actually ancillary, and even Sportcoat himself. Delighted to be here.ĪW: Deacon King Kong starts off with a very public shooting of a drug dealer by a seemingly harmless old drunk known as Sportcoat in a housing project in Brooklyn in 1969. But we're here today to talk about his new novel, Deacon King Kong. Note: Text has been edited and may not match audio exactly.Ībby West: Hi, I'm your Audible editor, Abby West, and I'm delighted to be here today with James McBride, former reporter and author of the National Book Award-winning The Good Lord Bird, his modern-day classic memoir The Color of Water, and many other works.

James mcbride king kong