Tuesday, October 20, 2020 — 6:30 pm

Proust (958), Melville (427), Falkner (1289): the number of words in one of these august authors’ l-o-n-g sentences. James McBride, their brother in bright images, crazy characters, and engrossing stories, also reels out lovely, long sentences that evoke time and place, and emotion, too, as the reader sees, hears, smells and feels, not by sensory touch, but by one’s all-embracing, all-encompassing, all-inclusive human Life Experience, the vivid animals and people enlivened, animated, invigorated, and, yes, exalted, too, which is not too lush a compliment for this author just nominated for the Kirkus prize in fiction, who dwell in 50’s Brooklyn, where the main character in this tale, an elderly, cranky, black man, also abides, but where today he likely couldn’t swing the rent, in Deacon King Kong, by James McBride. Period.

Join the Book Chamber October 20, the 3rd Tuesday, to pick our favorite lively character and salty sketch.

And, no, McBride’s sentences are not all long, but happily readable and his vignettes, delightfully engaging.