[a:James McBride|11728|James McBride|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1400174756p2/11728.jpg]'s [b:Deacon King Kong|51045613|Deacon King Kong|James McBride|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1570443527l/51045613.SX50.jpg|76287204] is one of those books that's so engrossing and good that I completely forgot that I subscribe to both Netflix and Amazon Prime. Fascinating characters and a story that moves along well, all while giving a terrific history of race relations in America in the late sixties even though the action takes place almost exclusively in a Brooklyn housing project. It's funny in some parts, moving in others, and the commentary doesn't feel like it's just been slipped in but is essential to the story. I found one anachronism—the Heimlich maneuver didn't exist until five years after it's part of the story here—and others who are smarter than I am may find more, but it's not important.
Deacon King Kong is one of those books you'll remember for a long time and be glad you read.

You worked, slaved, fought off the rats, the mice, the roaches, the ants, the Housing Authority, the cops, the muggers, and now the drug dealers. You lived a life of disappointment and suffering, of too-hot summers and too-cold winters, surviving in apartments with crummy stoves that didn't work and windows that didn't open and toilets that didn't flush and lead paint that flecked off the walls and poisoned your children, living in awful, dreary apartments built to house Italians who came to America to work the docs, which had emptied of boats, ships, tankers, dreams, money, and opportunity the moment the colored and the Latinos arrived. And still New York blamed you for all its problems.