Happy Wednesday book friends! Thank you Simon & Schuster Audio for the #gifted audiobook!
Rob Franklin’s debut novel Great Black Hope is a very atmospheric story of Smith, a young gay Black man in New York City. His life is turned upside down by the mysterious death of his roommate Elle and then his arrest for drug possession. Court appearances, mandated treatment, and the weight of expectations from his affluent family leave him reeling.
An arrest for cocaine possession on the last day of a sweltering New York summer leaves Smith, a queer Black Stanford graduate, in a state of turmoil. Pulled into the court system and mandated treatment, he finds himself in an absurd but dangerous situation: his class protects him, but his race does not. Here’s the full summary from the publisher:
It’s just weeks after the death of his beloved roommate Elle, the daughter of a famous soul singer, and he’s still reeling from the tabloid spectacle—as well as lingering questions around how well he really knew his closest friend. He flees to his hometown of Atlanta, only to buckle under the weight of expectations from his family of doctors and lawyers and their history in America. But when Smith returns to New York, it’s not long before he begins to lose himself to his old life—drawn back into the city’s underworld, where his search for answers may end up costing him his freedom and his future.
Smith goes on a dizzying journey through the nightlife circuit, anonymous recovery rooms, Atlanta’s Black society set, police investigations and courtroom dramas, and a circle of friends coming of age in a new era. Great Black Hope is a propulsive, glittering story about what it means to exist between worlds, to be upwardly mobile yet spiraling downward, and how to find a way back to hope.
I thought this story would be more of a typical mystery with the main character playing detective to solve his friend’s death. It is not that. It’s a character study of a young man trying to find his place in the world. It’s hard not to compare this book to Jay Mcinerney’s Bright Lights, Big City. A disaffected young man is NYC, life in turmoil, going from one party or club to another searching for…..something. Franklin’s writing holds its own when compared to MacInerney’s seminal book. It is beautiful, descriptive, and evocative. Narrator Justice Smith does a fantastic job bringing the story to life.
Definitely pick this one up if you’re looking for an exciting new voice in literary fiction.
What’s the last book that made you stop mid-sentence just to absorb the beauty of the writing?
About the Author
Born and raised in Atlanta, Rob Franklin is a writer of fiction and poetry, and a cofounder of Art for Black Lives. A Kimbilio Fiction Fellow and finalist for the New England Review Emerging Writer Award, he has published work in New England Review, Prairie Schooner, and The Rumpus among others. Franklin lives in Brooklyn, New York, and teaches writing at the School of Visual Arts. Great Black Hope is his first novel.
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