Deacon King Kong

Deacon Cuffy “Sportcoat” Lambkin walks out into the plaza of the Causeway Housing Projects, bombed on homemade King Kong and shoots 19 year old drug dealer Deems Clements' ear clean off. Despite not remembering a thing about the incident, Deacon “King Kong” is clearly a dead man walking.

Despite its pulpy start, this is really a golden hued memory of growing up in the projects in the late 1960's. While Spielberg defined the 80's in suburban America, this is McBride's recollection of growing up in Red Hook Brooklyn where his parents founded the New Brown Memorial Baptist Church.

It's a vibrant multi-cultured community where the Irish cop is honest and in love with the black minister's wife, where the Italian smuggler wants nothing more than to settle down with a plump wife but still lives with his mother who gardens with the drunk black deacon. Where the Dominican numbers runner is honest and the drug dealers leave the plaza empty till noon so the churchgoers can gossip around the flagpole.

It's also about second chances late in life and the possibility of love. It's a far warmer story than the opening would have you believe and in McBride's hands that's still a great thing. Throw in a McGuffin or two, some botched assassinations, some miracle cheese and an army of red ants and you've got a rose coloured recollection of growing up in the Brooklyn projects from an accomplished storyteller.