Great Black Hope by Rob Franklin: Review
Welcome to my review of Great Black Hope by Rob Franklin! This was my first read of June, and it’s a real conversation piece.
Title: Great Black Hope
Author: Rob Franklin
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publisher: Summit Books
Pub Date: 06/10/25
Description
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.
Review
Great Black Hope was really down my alley because even though it centered around Smith’s troubles with the law and the aftermath of his friend Elle’s death, it was also a study into the way race and class intersect. It was almost a character study in that the plot itself didn’t feel like the point, but instead what the plot said about the characters and society at large. There were lots of interesting musings on the war on drugs, privilege, how people are memorialized, and addictive behaviors.
I rarely read books centered around partying or the rich, so this book felt like a dive into a whole other world. Even though I attended Cornell and orbited around the wealthy types that imbibed without a care in the world, my friends weren’t those kinds of people, so I never found myself deep in those circles. If I were to ever see someone doing coke around me, I would know I’m in the complete wrong place. It’s almost scandalizing even to think about. Coke?? Not the beverage that’s a staple in Georgia? And yet, that kind of environment is normal to Smith and his friends. It’s welcome until they find themselves grappling with how to remain sober when the lifestyle they’ve created doesn’t encourage that.
I almost felt like a bystander in watching Smith’s journey because I wasn’t wholly invested in who he was as a person, and yet I didn’t mind at all. Did I love Smith? No. Did I hate him? No. My feelings on him almost didn’t feel like the point to me. It was like reality TV, where you don’t necessarily like the cast, but you can’t help but find their life fascinating and you look forward to seeing what they get up to next. He was also the kind of Black guy whose life, for a large portion of the book, seems to be very white-centered, from his friendships to romantic entanglements. It’s wild considering who his family is too and yet not at the same time. But if that’s not your cup of tea, this book might not be for you. His friendship with O did redeem him somewhat on that front for me.
The mystery element of the book did feel less important than Smith’s journey, so it gave me a detached feeling to the search for Elle’s killer. I was fine whether it got revealed or not, but I wouldn’t go into the book expecting that to play a large part in the plot. Overall though, I had a good time reading this book and would read more of Rob Franklin’s writing.
*Thank you to the publisher for sending me an ARC. All opinions are my own.*
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.
Where to Buy
Bookshop | Barnes & Noble | Amazon
