Great Black Hope: A Novel by Rob Franklin (Hardcover) (PREORDER)

Fiction - Literary - City Life - African American & Black

RELEASE DATE: 6/10/2025  (WILL SHIP DIRECTLY FROM OUR SUPPLIER'S WAREHOUSE AND ARRIVE 1-2 DAYS AFTER THE RELEASE DATE)

"Incandescent…full of sentences I want to cut out and glue to my forehead." —Kaveh Akbar, New York Times bestselling author of Martyr!

"Great Black Hope is at once a novel of crime—with a gripping pace, propelled by a question that needs answering—and a timeless coming of age story." —Rumaan Alam, bestselling author of Entitlement

A gripping, elegant debut novel about a young Black man caught between worlds of race and class, glamour and tragedy, a friend’s mysterious death and his own arrest, from an electrifying new voice.

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.

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.

AUTHOR BIO: 

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.

"A beautifully expansive novel about race and class...Franklin's emotional and intellectual range is vast.... An exceptional debut." -- Katie Kitamura " Author of Intimacies and A Separation"

"What a marvel to discover a voice so authentic, urgent, and undeniable. GREAT BLACK HOPE is a rare thing: a coming-of-age novel that examines the individual as well as the complex systems that shape his life. An intensely intimate yet expansive work of art." -- Tania James " author of Loot"