Book review: Deacon King Kong as seen by Girl Leche Flan
Book review by Paula Abjelina
It may be strange to find James McBride’s Deacon King Kong comforting.
Set in the Cause Houses of 1969 Brooklyn, the novel begins when the local drunk named Sportcoat shoots a teenage drug dealer at close range. Sportcoat, sardonically referred to as Deacon King Kong after the homegrown booze he consumes in vast quantities, opens fire in a haze of alcohol and rage. Tongues wag, drama ensues, and mobsters get involved in this tale of a close-knit community dealing with a singular event that challenges everything they know about their hometown.
To get lost in McBride’s vibrant 1960s Brooklyn is inevitable. (The same can be said about 2020s Maginhawa, Quezon City). Characters are drawn out in hilarious specificity: elderly drunks hurl playground insults at each other, church matrons gossip, and gangsters reveal secret desires of living crime-free lives. The street monickers and backstories help bounce the story merrily along: Soul Lopez, The Elephant, Sister Bumbum, Hot Sausage. (Who could resist these names? I’m almost sorry I wasn’t named Girl Leche Flan.) There is so much history in tiny pockets of every neighborhood. What McBride does brilliantly is shine a lovinh light on the darkest corners, with as much grace as he does with wit.
Deacon King Kong may just seem like a long-winded but humorous account of a poor town after a crime. (Has James McBride been reading Abante?) At cursory glance it may even feel too familiar: everyone knows everyone’s business, the center of all activity is a church, and a shooting happens in plain sight. It feels almost like the Dutertopia we’re living in. What the novel achieves to dizzying effect is bring to life the cozy yet claustrophobic feeling of living in tight quarters. Intimacy tints all relationships, syystemic suffering colors all beliefs, and humans survive grief in the embrace of community. By the time you reach the last page, you come away almost wistful. Is oneness still a thing in 2020?
It’s sobering to note that at this Age of Internet Commentary, our species is moving further and further away from the time when we viewed each other with kindness. The vivid history that James McBride unravels so beautifully holds up a mirror to that shared cynicism. Are we all hypocrites for judging our neighbors? Or have we just wisened up to the ways of the world? Do we all have street names, and would we call each other these names to our faces? Are you comfortable being called Boy Strawberry?
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
