Novelist James McBride

National Book Award-winner JAMES McBRIDE’s first book, “The Color of Water,” was a memoir about growing up in a Brooklyn housing project, one of twelve kids raised by his Jewish mother whose African-American husband died just before McBride was born. His new novel, “Deacon King Kong,” also draws on his life and is set in a close knit but hard scrabble Brooklyn neighborhood in 1969, just as heroin begins to eat away at the community. McBride has said that these characters are based on people he has known and loved his whole life. This hour, James McBride talks about his new book, his life, and his approach to writing about race and faith. [from the Radio Times archive]