Join writer and scholar Rob Franklin for his gripping and elegant debut, Great Black Hope, about a young Black man caught between worlds of race and class, glamour and tragedy. Franklin will be in conversation with acclaimed poet and essayist Hanif Abdurraqib.
The pre-purchase of Great Black Hope while registering waives the $10 registration fee.
KING ARTS COMPLEX is Gramercy’s Community Partner for this program.
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.
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.
Hanif Abdurraqib is a nationally acclaimed poet, essayist, and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio. His most recent book of essays, A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance, was a finalist for the National Book Award in Nonfiction and named one of the ten best books of the year by Publishers Weekly. He is the author of two poetry collections, The Crown Ain't Worth Much and A Fortune for Your Disaster. His first collection of essays, They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us, was named a book of the year by NPR, Esquire, BuzzFeed, O: The Oprah Magazine, Pitchfork, and Chicago Tribune, among others. Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to a Tribe Called Quest was a New York Times bestseller and a National Book Critics Circle Award and Kirkus Prize finalist and was longlisted for the National Book Award. In 2021, he was named a MacArthur “Genius Grant” Fellow.
