James McBride Talks About ‘Deacon King Kong’

Subscribe: iTunes | Google Play Music | How to Listen James McBride’s last novel, “The Good Lord Bird,” won the National Book Award in 2013. He’s published other books since then, but now he returns with another big novel: “Deacon King Kong. ” The book begins in 1969, and its plot involves several members of a Baptist church in Brooklyn. “I’ve had a lot of fun at church,” McBride says on this week’s podcast.

“Church is kind of a dysfunctional family, but you’re family, even though it’s dysfunctional. So you might be dealing with someone who’s really, really weird, bizarre, but you kind of accept them. So that made this book a lot easier for me to do, because I understand the relationships that happen in church. ” Also on this week’s episode, Rebecca Solnit discusses her new memoir, “Recollections of My Nonexistence”; Alexandra Alter talks about visiting Hilary Mantel to discuss the end of her Thomas Cromwell trilogy; and Gregory Cowles, Andrew LaVallee and John Williams talk about what people are reading.

Pamela Paul is the host. Here are the books discussed in this week’s “What We’re Reading”: “Uncanny Valley” by Anna Wiener “Black Boy” by Richard Wright “The Ice Palace” by Tarjei Vesaas “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison “Untangled” by Lisa Damour We would love to hear your thoughts about this episode, and about the Book Review’s podcast in general. You can send them to books@nytimes. com.