Deacon King Kong

CHOSEN BY BARACK OBAMA AS A FAVOURITE READ OF 2020 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AND OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK TOP TEN BOOKS OF 2020, NEW YORK TIMES and WASHINGTON POST'A hilarious, pitch-perfect comedy set in the Brooklyn projects of the late 1960s. This alone may qualify it as one of the year's best novels.' The Washington Post From the winner of a National Book Award and author of the bestselling memoir,The Color of Water, and The Good Lord Bird, a TV series starring Ethan HawkeThe year is 1969. In a housing project in south Brooklyn, a shambling old church deacon called Sportcoat shoots - for no apparent reason - the local drug-dealer who used to be part of the church's baseball team.The repercussions of that moment draw in the whole community, from Sportcoat's best friend - Hot Sausage - to the local Italian mobsters, the police (corrupt and otherwise), and the stalwart ladies of the Five Ends Baptist Church. DEACON KING KONG is a book about a community under threat, about the ways people pull together in an age when the old rules are being rewritten. It is very funny in places, and heartbreaking in others.From a prize-winning storyteller, this New York Times bestseller shows us that not all secrets are meant to be hidden, and that the communities we build are fragile but vital.