Nat'l Bk Award Winner James McBride's Novel DEACON KING KONG - Long on Characters

James McBride is a man who wears many hats.  McBride received a Nat'l Book Award for his memoir THE COLOR of WATER ('13).  He's also a musician, novelist and hails from a multi-racial, cultural background having been born & raised in Brooklyn.  McBride brings together an army of character, some long in the tooth, deep into booze & drugs, some involved in the church and living on the outskirts of the big city scratching out an existence while balancing a co-existence with neighboring ethnicities.  The central character in this cast of plenty is Sportcoat, a deacon of the Negro congregational church, a boozer bent on an elixir dubbed King Kong. McBride's bi-racial, mixed religious & ethnic heritage plays out in this funny, frustrating and deeply touching reflection on people's interconnection.  The streets of Brooklyn are tough for the Negroes around the flag pole territory.  But, the people here look out for their own while trying not to rub elbows with other dissipating factions of low income Irish, Whites, Jews in an ever changing demographic now being over taken by drug lords, guns & violence.  The deft writing brings in a boat load of people who appear at odds with one another and even their own worst enemy.  Trust me - those who trust are to be trusted. This is driven home by McBride's deft hand for storytelling that cuts in so many differing swaths that when the treasure of this novel is ultimately uncovered, its compassion and wisdom comes in like a wrecking ball constructing a community of unity.  Sportcoat is the central scapegoat. He tries to redeem the young turks he taught to play ball as kids but have turned from the law to dealing in drug and gang mentality.  Sportcoat is an old drunk with a blind son, a dead wife Hettie whom he talks to constantly, and a bottomless thirst for booze.  The mayhem he creates & circumvents is hilarious.  However, Sportcoat is not the sole main event.  He has ole pal Sausage, Deems, his baseball protege turned drug dealer, and a bevy of strong willed women who are the wise, backbone holding everything & everyone together.  Elephant, is runs the family's Italian business from the piers in Brooklyn.  He brings in the goods when no one is lookin.  Elephant and a Centurian black nun serendipitously meet.  Their interlude leads to Elephant's reflection, "We got no block, she said,  The Italians don't own the block.  Nobody owns the block.  Nobody was king of nothing in New York.  It's life.  Survival.  How could he have been so stupid? he thought.  Is this what love does?  It changes you this way?  It allows you to see the past this clearly."  "Deacon King Kong" takes its time laying down its foundation reverberating with rewarding & delightful gems in the end.