“With humor and range…Great Black Hope examines the complex relationship between wealth and race in America….Genre-bending…part elegy, addiction narrative, mystery, queer coming-of-age story and novel of manners…even in its downcast moments, Great Black Hope retains its comic edge, exposing the absurdity and tragedy of American race and gender relations. It will make many readers laugh through tears, and they won’t know which reaction came first.” —Elias Rodriques, The New York Times
"If Tom Wolfe, Jay McInerney, and Margo Jefferson somehow collaborated, this might have been the delightful result." —Boris Kachka, The Atlantic
"Dazzling...exquisite....Think Bonfire of the Vanities meets Bright Lights, Big City." —Suzanne Vanatten, Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“A debut that shouts its arrival and a novel that thrills while making you think. Artful and transporting…a book I couldn’t wait to get lost in…compulsive.” —Carole V. Bell, NPR.org
“With lush evocations of the world of wealth and cutting observations about the people who inhabit it, Franklin’s debut is a tour de force.”—Charley Burlock, Oprah Daily (Best Summer Reads of 2025)
“It’s thrilling to see any author today aiming for the big stuff all at once: death, race, sex, class, addiction. It’s beyond thrilling—incandescent, even—when a writer like Rob Franklin comes along with the formal virtuosity to carry those lofty conceptual ambitions. Franklin’s prose is eminently readable, frequently laugh-out-loud funny, and full of sentences I want to cut out and glue to my forehead. This book is so smart, so moving, so earned; as soon as I finished, I started reading it again.” —Kaveh Akbar, New York Times bestselling author of Martyr!
“Rob Franklin’s debut novel, Great Black Hope, is a masterpiece– at once fresh and original while delighting the reader with hints of Franzen, McInerney, Baldwin. The specificity of the language is like fine lacework, a beauty to behold. This novel – a whodunit, a coming-of-age, a New York novel – heralds the arrival of a rarefied talent. Wow wow wow.” —Elin Hilderbrand, author of Swan Song
"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, author of Entitlement
“A beautifully expansive novel about race and class…Franklin’s emotional and intellectual range is vast…. An exceptional debut.” —Katie Kitamura, author of Audition and Intimacies
“The music of Rob Franklin’s writing is so seductive, you won’t even notice the shiv until it’s too late.” —Saeed Jones, author of Alive at the End of the World
“Great Black Hope indeed! Rob Franklin’s brilliant storytelling explores and explodes every fact and fiction of those charged words; likewise, the intricacies and treacheries of privilege. Those categories we parse so confidently — class, race, gender sexuality — are shaped into nuanced individual stories. His prose is elegant and searching, his pace flawless from start to finish.” —Margo Jefferson, author of Negroland
“Franklin’s insight on class, race, performance, sexuality, and art is at once searing and insistent upon uncovering deeper nuance, all with a wry and canny sense of wit.” — Michael Colbert, BOMB Magazine
“This searing debut has everything you could ever want from a gripping summer read: a missing person, a drug scandal and a group of privileged New Yorkers on a climactic sojourn in the Hamptons. Yet it is also a brilliant and insightful novel about the fascinating intersections of race and class – how economic privilege cannot shield you from the most awful consequences of prejudice. This will prove a rude awakening for our protagonist Smith, who, over one fateful night, will be sent on a life-changing course direction.” — Harper’s Bazaar UK
“Smart, scintillating… Subjects that might make for solemn reading are rendered thoroughly absorbing by the author’s radiant prose and razor-sharp observations. A captivating novel of dissolution and redemption.” — Kirkus (Starred Review)
“Rob Franklin’s prose is rich, mesmerizing, and utterly gorgeous. Through each remarkable sentence, Franklin takes you through a meditation on one Black queer man's struggle with the confinement of his choices under the magnifying glass of wealthy America.” —Leila Mottley, author of Nightcrawling
“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
"The precision and ecstasy of Rob Franklin's prose had me entranced. Great Black Hope marks the arrival of a breathtakingly talented writer." —Megha Majumdar, author of A Burning
“For those who enjoy gritty realism and gorgeous writing.” — Toni Fitzgerald, Forbes (25 Must-Read Books To Add To Your 2025 Summer List)
“A big debut that announces the arrival of a major new talent and lives up to the hype.”
—The Maris Review by Maris Kreizman
“For those who enjoy a mix of character exploration and lyrical language, Great Black Hope is a debut novel to seek out and savor.” —Norah Piehl, Bookreporter.com
“Dynamic and excellent….Smith is a character worth spending time with, full of pathos and insightful
observations as he lives through his wayward twenties….Franklin deftly develops his characters, vividly rendering their perceptions and bringing the reader into the scene through elegant prose." —Allison Escoto, Booklist
“Radiant…readers will be rapt." —Publishers Weekly
