\u201cIncandescent\u2026full of sentences I want to cut out and glue to my forehead.\u201d\u2014Kaveh Akbar,\u00a0<\/b>New York Times\u00a0<\/i><\/b>bestselling author of<\/b>\u00a0Martyr!<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
\u201cA novel of crime\u2014with a gripping pace, propelled by a question that needs answering\u2014and a timeless coming-of-age story.\u201d\u2014Rumaan Alam, bestselling author of\u00a0<\/b>Entitlement<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
\u201cA masterpiece\u2026At once fresh and original while delighting the reader with hints of Franzen, McInerny, Baldwin. This novel\u2014a whodunit, a coming-of-age, a New York novel\u2014heralds the arrival of a rarefied talent.\u201d\u2014Elin Hilderbrand, bestselling author of\u00a0<\/b>Swan Song<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
A gripping, elegant debut novel about a young Black man caught between worlds of race and class, glamour and tragedy, a friend\u2019s mysterious death and his own arrest, from an electrifying new voice.<\/b><\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s just weeks after the death of his beloved roommate Elle, the daughter of a famous soul singer, and he\u2019s still reeling from the tabloid spectacle\u2014as 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\u2019s not long before he begins to lose himself to his old life\u2014drawn back into the city\u2019s underworld, where his search for answers may end up costing him his freedom and his future.<\/p>\n
Smith goes on a dizzying journey through the nightlife circuit, anonymous recovery rooms, Atlanta\u2019s Black society set, police investigations and courtroom dramas, and a circle of friends coming of age in a new era.\u00a0Great Black Hope<\/i>\u00a0is 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.<\/p>\n