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THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AND OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICKTOP TEN BOOKS OF 2020, NEW YORK TIMES’Hilarious, pitch-perfect… 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, soon to be 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.