“Deacon King Kong” (post 6) by James McBride: Multiple personality explains the protagonist’s memory gap for the shooting

“Don’t you ever get tired of hearing yourself talk? Deacon King Kong!”

“Sportcoat blinked, feeling slightly cowed. ‘I already told you, your words can’t hurt me, boy, for I ain’t never done nothing wrong to ya. Other than care for you, a little bit.”

“You shot me, ya dumb nigger.”

“I don’t recall none of it, son” (1, pp. 318-319).

“Now I know why I tried to kill you,” Sportcoat said. ‘For the life of goodness is not one that your people has chosen for you. I don’t want that you should end up like me…I’m in the last Octobers of life, boy…It’s a right end for an old drunk like me, and a right end for you too that you die as a good boy…Better to remember you that way than as the sewer you has become…Don’t ever come near me again,’ Sportcoat said. ‘If you do, I’ll deaden you where you stand” (1, p. 322).

Comment: Since the protagonist’s regular personality had not been co-conscious with the alternate personality who had tried to kill the young drug dealer to save him, his regular personality had had a memory gap for doing it.

Added same day: I finished the novel, but found nothing else worth mentioning, except that the hat in the author's photograph and on the front cover are similar, which may mean nothing, except metaphorically, that the author has multiple personality trait.

1. James McBride. Deacon King Kong. NewYork Riverhead Books, 2020.