The Midtown Scholar Bookstore is honored to welcome award-winning writer Rob Franklin to Harrisburg for a conversation and signing on his debut novel, Great Black Hope. Franklin will be in conversation with author John Vercher. This event is free and open to the public.
To enter the signing line, books must be purchased from the Midtown Scholar Bookstore. Copies of the book will be available for purchase at the event, or you may preorder a copy of the book for pickup/shipment.
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.
About the Authors:
Born and raised in Atlanta, Rob Franklin is a writer of fiction, criticism, and poetry, and a cofounder of Art for Black Lives. A Kimbilio Fiction Fellow and finalist for the New England Review Emerging Writer prize, he has published work in New England Review, Prairie Schooner, and The Rumpus among others. Franklin holds a BA from Stanford University and an MFA from NYU’s Creative Writing program. He lives in Brooklyn and teaches writing at the School of Visual Arts. Great Black Hope is his first novel.
John Vercher lives in the Philadelphia area with his wife and two sons. He has a BA in English from the University of Pittsburgh and an MFA in creative writing from the Mountainview Master of Fine Arts program. John was an assistant teaching professor in the Department of English and Philosophy at Drexel University, was the inaugural Wilma Dykeman writer-in-residence at the University of North Carolina, Asheville, and is the 2024–2025 artist-in-residence at Monmouth University. His debut novel, Three-Fifths, was named one of the best books of the year by the Chicago Tribune and Booklist. It was nominated for the Edgar Award and the Strand Critics Award for Best Debut Novel. His second novel, After the Lights Go Out, called “shrewd and explosive” by the New York Times, was named a Best Book of Summer 2022 by Book Riot and Publishers Weekly and a Booklist Editors’ Choice book of 2022. His novel, Devil Is Fine, was named one of Time’s Must-Read Books of 2024 and has been longlisted for the Aspen Words Literary Prize.
