NEW YORK (AP) — James McBride’s latest honor for the novel “Deacon King Kong” is a real New York story. McBride’s fictional snapshot of a Brooklyn neighborhood in the late 1969 has won the inaugural Gotham Book Prize, given for outstanding writing about New York City. This year, McBride has also won the Anisfield-Wolf fiction award for a book that addresses racism and diversity and a Carnegie Medal for fiction that is presented by the American Library Association. McBride will receive $50,000 for the Gotham prize, for which judges ranged from filmmaker Ric Burns to former New York City Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott.
