![]() ![]() ![]() (The Indian equivalent of this milieu is the chawl.)Īt the centre of the boisterous, tragic, romantic and criminal goings on is the Five Ends Baptist Church, of which Sportcoat is a Deacon-what exactly a deacon does is a question asked by a couple of characters, and the answers are vague. James McBride’s new novel, Deacon King Kong, set in a crumbling Brooklyn housing project in the late sixties, wraps up the history of immigrant and black lives at the fringes of a prospering city, with his exuberant prose.Ĭapturing the salty tang of the speech of the poor and hard-working people (the blacks were still slaves in a way, dumped with menial jobs), he tells a story of which the protagonist is an old drunk, Cuffy Lambkin, nicknamed Sportcoat by the Cause Housing community – and it is a close knit one, in spite of gang wars and basketball rivalry with the neighbourhood projects, where everyone knows and minds everyone else’s business. ![]()
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