Will I love Deacon King Kong?

James McBride has an enormous gift for evoking the goodness in characters whose lives are perceived to be beyond redemption. 

They inhabit the down and out realms of addiction, impoverishment, life on the streets, in housing projects rife with crime. And yet, he also reveals the faith and spirituality that binds them with love and humor, and provides them with the endurance for facing the ugliness and miracles in everyday life.

What I love most about Deacon King Kong is the surprising affection I feel for the characters that James McBride describes in hilariously creative ways, revealing the depths of… show more.

An inventive police-procedural set into a close-knit inner-city community, the heart of this page-turner are the quirky endearing characters of all ages.

I hung on every moment as they grappled with survival as well as clinging to the ties that bind, and I was reminded of my own upbringing in NYC. Whatever race or ethnicity or sexual identity or sexual orientation, and whatever paths we walk, time passes as we face our mortality.

Some of the dialogue here will have you laughing aloud, and fascinated with people you might otherwise never meet.