Song Exploder - Book Exploder: James McBride - Deacon King Kong

Episode Date: November 9, 2022

The final episode of Book Exploder is with author James McBride. He was born in New York City and raised in Brooklyn’s Red Hook Houses housing projects until the age of seven. That housing project became the setting for his novel, Deacon King Kong. In 2015, President Obama awarded him with the National Humanities Medal, and in 2021, Deacon King Kong won the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. Deacon King Kong tells of the upending of a Brooklyn neighborhood, after a young drug dealer is shot in broad daylight by a deacon known to everyone as Sportcoat. In his conversation with Susan, James discusses a passage from the book’s opening, which takes place in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. For more, visit bookexploder.com/episodes/james-mcbride.

You're listening to Book Exploder, where authors break down a passage from their work to show us how they write. I'm Rishi Kesh Your Way. And I'm Susan Orlean. This is the last episode of Book Exploder. Thank you so much for listening. If you haven't heard them yet, you can still go back and listen to the first seven episodes with Susan Orlean, Minjin Lee, Michael Cunningham, Carmen Maria Machado, Tayari Jones, Celeste Ng, and George Saunders. And today I'm speaking with James McBride, author of Deacon King Kong, which was a great guy. published in 2020.

In 2015, President Obama awarded James McBride with the National Humanities Medal, and in 2021, Deacon King Kong won the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. Susan, when did you first read James McBride? Actually, I first ended up listening to James McBride. As it happens, the very first audiobook I ever listened to was The Color of Water, which is a memoir that McBride published. and I couldn't wait to get my hands on Deakin King Kong. It's hilarious.

In fact, you find yourself laughing out loud. And I don't laugh out loud at a lot of books, even books that are funny. It's a little bit more of a private internal chuckle. But I was literally causing people in the room with me to be startled. And you ended up talking to him about the way Deacon King Kong starts. Right. This was a very powerful beginning that was fascinating to me about how the book kicked off. So I was really glad that we focused on this.

So here's Susan's conversation with James McBride. Deacon King Kong is about a housing project in Brooklyn, and it's about a deacon from the church who's affectionately known as Deacon King Kong because that's the drink he likes to drink. Deacon Cuffey Lambkin, a five-ends Baptist, church became a walking dead man on a cloudy afternoon in September 1969. That's the day the old deacon, known as Sport Coat to his friends, marched out to the plaza of the Causeway Housing Projects in South Brooklyn, stuck an ancient 38 colt in the face of a 19-year-old drug dealer named

Deems Clemens and pulled the trigger. And that's how the book opens. And then the specter widens and widens. It's like a pond that, you know, rock falls into a pond. The wave gets wider and wider, and we get to see more and more of the neighborhood and the people who inhabit it. So to begin with, was there a single image or a single idea that triggered the genesis of this book? You know, normally when you're writing a novel, it kicks around in you for months or weeks, days, and sometimes even years. But this book just came out. of nowhere. It probably originated because about seven years ago I started a program to teach music to kids in the housing projects where I was born in Red Hook, Brooklyn. And so I'm there every week.

And so I became familiar with the routine of life there. And so much of it is the same as it once was. I just love the people there, you know, and I love what it has given to me. It's a community that I've always loved. It's always embraced me, no matter how high or low I've gotten. It's always embraced me no matter what I've done. How much pressure does the first sentence represent to you? A lot. Because you've got someone standing in a book, so you know, you're charging them like, you know, $25, whatever it is to buy your book. And if the first couple paragraphs ain't no good, forget it. I must have wrote the first couple lines, first graph to this book, I probably 50 times at least. I rewrite everything. It's never a first

draft for me. I mean, it just ain't that kind of right. I think nobody's that good. Maybe Tony Morrison or something like that, but the rest of us, we're just mortals, man. We can't do that. One of the aspects of the book that I loved is that cohabiting of great humor and tragedy,

you know, I think it's interesting to begin by saying Deacon Cuffey, Lampkin, became a walking dead man, which is both a fun. notion and also somber. And the next thing we know, he's shooting someone in the head. That balance is, I think, unusual in any of the books that I can think of. Well, when you live in a community where you're powerless to do much, you learn to laugh at a lot. That's really what it is, you know, because there's nothing else you can do. You know, we live in a world of fools. And sometimes the world

run by fools. And so what are you going to do? You're going to write a letter to the New York Times about it? You're going to get yourself a glass of bubbly and see if you're going to have another fun for 10 minutes before the cops come for you. So I prefer that route. And that doesn't mean that I'm against intellectual, blah. I just, if you're an artist of any type, you live with soul and if you live well, you learn to excise out a lot of the nonsense of society because so much of it doesn't matter. I wake up every day knowing that nothing really is wrong. Everything is supposed to happen. Everything happens that's supposed to be. And that's a hard thing to keep pure because as soon as you pick up the newspaper and I read two of them every day, sometimes three, you barrage with this

information that makes you say, oh man, we've got to, I'm going to write a little. And you realize that you can't do that. You know, you just have to be like, you have to be like the sun. You just have to shine a light on everything and let grow what will grow and let die what will die and keep it moving. So how much work do you do before you sit down to write that first sentence? Do you plot out the story of each character in your mind or on paper? What happens before you sit down to write that first sentence? I research pretty heavily. I research.

I just read a lot. I go to where I'm writing about it. I find out how in the case of the projects, how the boiler rooms work and how they've got these giant hot water tanks, you know, 20,000 gallons of water, and there's a maintenance room and, you know, all this stuff, and most of which I don't use.

But you keep it because you fill up the tank and you only use a tenth of it. The rest of you just throw away. So I don't really move on a book until I'm full. And then when I'm full, I set the characters in motion. And if they don't move, if there's no motion, then I'm not full. So I go back and get full.

I feel all the way up, you know, until I can't stand it. You know, I hate it. I hate doing the research, but, you know, it's got to be done. One of the abiding qualities of the book to me is the affection that is really there among even people who are antagonists. Sportcoat is probably the kind of standard bearer for this. He's a liar, he's a drunk, and yet the affection is so potent. Sportcoat, a wiry, laughing brown skin man who had coughed, weased, hacked, goffawed, and drank his way through the court's houses for a good part of his 71 years.

I guess it, in a way, is like a family, where you can drive each other crazy, But at the end of the day, you're really there for each other. Yeah, well, we all have an uncle or an aunt or a cousin or somebody or a sister or brother who's like sport coat, you know, somebody who does something crazy all the time. They do crazy stuff. They have crazy beliefs or politics. You know, you're thinking UFOs are coming or, you know, Area 51, you know, all kinds of stupid crazy stuff. That doesn't mean that we're smarter than them.

It just means we should enjoy them more. You know, I grew up in a house with a lot of, you know, really crazy. siblings and a lot of crazy stuff, and it made it infinitely interesting. I just can't imagine being in a world without people like that. I'm really, I'm happiest when I'm in Red Hook around people who that most people don't want to be around. So this book is not really written to be funny. It's just really written to show people the gorgeous mosaic of humanity that exist in most communities that most people who read my books see from behind the wheel of a tightly locked car. That's really what it is.

You know, I recently read a book by Donald Hall, who go life after 80 or something like that. He was a poet. And poets, when they write straight up and down prose, can be powerfully significant. And Donald Hall makes Maine, wherever he lived, I think he lived in New Hampshire, some little town. He makes it look extremely attractive, even though I can tell you right now, I wouldn't live there for free.

But, I mean, I mean, he makes this little town in his lifestyle sound so interesting and so full of the bumps and the grinds and the dirt of life. And that's what made him a great poet and a great writer as well, because he understood that when you cover up, when you put the makeup on and you dust off the room and you clean the place, you're cleaning out story. You just threw the story in the garbage. Well, he understands that. You know, he goes dumpster diving and I'm right after him, because that's where the story is. We'll be right back with more after this. One of the great, really delicious aspects of this book was the names.

Sister T.J. Billings, known affectionately as Bum-Bum, head usher at five ends, whose husband was the only soul in that church's story history to leave his wife or man and live to tell about it. He moved to Alaska, had her own theory. The naming is so marvelous and sometimes just purely hilarious. Tell me about naming your characters. I didn't have to do that much work because I knew a lot of these people. I knew of two sport coats. I didn't meet them, but I knew two sport coats.

No way. Are you serious? I knew someone named Hot Sausage. I knew Lightbulb. Lightbulb was a friend of mine when I was a kid. Beanie. I knew these people. So the names were just people I knew or that just came up with because they were funny

because people I know are very funny. I want people to be happy. I've just always found a lot of joy in the words that emanate from the mouths of the people that I knew. Yeah. It's interesting. It's a very musical book. That shouldn't be a huge surprise given that you're a musician. But also the language of the people as you capture it is very musical.

because you've got some very elaborate, almost baroque sentences, and then some very staccato, short-clipped sentences. His late wife, Hetty, had been the Christmas Club treasurer of his church. He was a peaceful man, beloved by all. So what happened? Do you read out loud while you're writing? Oh, no, no, my lips couldn't stand it. No, but, see, you're a real writer.

I'm a person, I'm a musician who writes. I think that's the difference. Because you understand the craft well, and you understand the intricacies of it very well. I never focus on that because I'm afraid I don't want to lose levity. I just know that people talk in short sentences. And so you want to keep it short and tight. That said, you know, at times blow a whole paragraph into like a page and a half.

And then I'll fret about it, you know, and I'll try to break it up. but sometimes you just live with the music that's on the page, you know. When I was a young man playing music for a living, and I would play with the old cats, they would never say, like, I want you to play a whole tone scale when you get to the F7. They don't say that. They just say, what kind of story you're telling?

If you're telling the right kind of story, they'll hear it. And so you can do all the technical things. You could learn the whole tone scale, the minute's half a minute scale, blah, blah, blah. And, you know, you can still play and you just sound like garbage. because you need to focus this technical thing. I got, oh, I got to turn. And that's not really what writing is for.

That's why so many good trees are wasted on bad books. You're right, because there's something in your soul that says, go this way or go that way. Now, how you get there is your business. The morning after the shooting, the daily gathered of retired city workers, flop house bums, board housewives, and ex-convicts who congregated in the middle of the projects

at the park bench near the flagpole to sip free coffee and salute old glory as it was raised to the sky had all kinds of theories about why old sport coat did it. So whether a short sentence or a long sentence, I swear it, you know, right hand and go, I never read out loud. It's just what's there. If I thought about it too much, it wouldn't work. You know, I'm scared to do that.

I mean, it's funny because sometimes when I ask these questions, I almost feel like, why am I even asking that? Because I think the best writing is never going to be. deliberate that way? Well, you can't really judge, though, because some writers will map it out and they'll knock it out the yard every time. You know, everyone's different. So you can't judge one versus the other.

It's what's beneath it that counts. See, I deal with the underground turf. I'm not interested in how the flower grows. I'm interested in the root. If you're interested in the flower, then the flower shows where you belong. But if you're interested in the root, then you may want to go to the laboratory. figure out what's happening, because that is ultimately where the solution for the beautiful plant lies. I think that metaphor kind of holds together. If it don't too bad, but I mean, that's the

idea. Yeah. If you sit down and say, I'm going to start with a little bit of humor and then undercut it with someone getting shot. I mean, it would never work. Well, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. You're moving with instinct. I used to have a saxophone teacher when I was at Oberlin. I went to in Ohio. When I used to come in there and play a bunch of scale exercise, and he would sit at the window, he'd look out the one that he said, I'm bored. One day I came in and he said, you know what, go home and practice your ass off and come up with something. And so I did. I went home and I practiced like what I thought was music. And I brought it into him. And he said, now you're creating something. So, you know, you're moving in an instinctual way, following along people that you like to be around or understand or think you understand. with the notion that you might not understand them as well as you do. You're just kind of going through this world. And also, you just don't want to do things that hurt people for nothing. A book is not a platform to give your opinions.

It's a place to tell stories. And now here's James McBride reading the opening passage from Deacon King Kong. Deacon Cuffey Lambkin, a five-ends Baptist church, became a walking dead man on a cloudy afternoon in September 1916. That's the day the old deacon, known as Sportcoat to his friends, marched out to the plaza of the Causeway Housing Projects in South Brooklyn, stuck an ancient 38 colt in the face of a 19-year-old drug dealer named Deems Clemens and pulled the trigger. There were a lot of theories floating around the projects as to why old Sportcoat, a wiry, laughing brownskin man who had coughed, weased, hacked, guffawed, and drank his way through the car, house. for a good part of his 71 years, shot the most ruthless drug dealer the projects had ever seen. He had no enemies.

He had coached the project baseball team for 14 years. His late wife Hetty had been the Christmas club treasurer of his church. He was a peaceful man, beloved by all. So what happened? The morning after the shooting, the daily gathered of retired city workers, flop house bums, boardhouse wives, and ex-convicts who congregated in the middle of the projects at the park bench near the flagpole to sip free coffee and salute old glory as it was raised to the sky, had all kinds of theories about why old Sportcoat did it.

Sportcoat had rheumatic fever, declared Veronica G., the president of the cause houses tenant association and wife of the minister at Five End's Baptist Church, where Sportcoat had served for 15 years. She told the gathering that Sportcoat was planning to preach his first ever sermon, that upcoming Friends and Family Day, titled, Don't Eat the Dressin' without Confessing. She also threw in that the church's Christmas club money was missing, quote, but if sport coat took it, she said, it was on account of that fever. Sister T.J. Billings, known affectionately as bum bum, head usher at five ends, whose husband was the only soul in that church's story history to leave his wife or man and live to tell about it.

He moved to Alaska, had her own theory. She said Sportcoat shot Deems because the mysterious ants have returned to Building 9. Sportcoat, she said, grimly, is under an evil spell. There's a mojo about. Miss Izzy Cordero, vice president of the Puerto Rican Statehood Society of the Cores' houses, who had actually been standing just 30 feet away when Sportcoat pointed his ancient peace shooter at Deems' skull and cut loose, said the whole ruckus started because Sportcoat was black. by a, quote, certain evil Spanish gangster, end quote, and she knew exactly who that gangster was

and planned to tell the cops all about him. Of course, everybody knew she was talking about her Dominican ex-husband, Joaquin, who was the only honest, numberist runner in the projects, and that she and Joaquin hated each other's guts, and each had worked the other to get arrested for the last 20 years. So there was that. Deacon King Kong is available in hardcover or paperback or audio. book. The conversation between Susan and James McBride was originally recorded as part of a live event hosted by the bookstore Book Passage in San Francisco. Thanks so much to everyone at Book Passage for their help. You can visit us at bookexploder.com for more information. This episode of

Book Exploder was produced by Theo Balcom, Julia Botero, Susan, and myself. Our production assistant is Mary Dolan. Raina Takahashi created the Book Exploder logo. Our episode artwork is by Paula Jackson, and I made the show's theme music. Book Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX. A network of independent, listener-supported, artist-owned podcasts. Find out more at Radiotopia.fm. I'm Rishi K. Shirway. And I'm Susan Orlean.

Thanks for listening.