JAMES MCBRIDE is the author of the bestseller Deacon King Kong: A Novel, the National Book Award-winning The Good Lord Bird: A Novel, The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother, Song Yet Sung: A Novel, and Miracle at St. Anna, as well as the story collection Five-Carat Soul, and Kill’ Em and Leave: Searching for James Brown and the American Soul. His latest book is The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store: A Novel (Riverhead Books).