We may receive an affiliate commission from anything you buy from this article.In his debut novel, "Great Black Hope" (to be published June 10 by Simon & Schuster), author Rob Franklin follows a young African American man whose family launched him for success – but after an arrest for drug possession and the death of a close friend, his once-bright future feels anything but guaranteed.Read an excerpt below. "Great Black Hope" by Rob Franklin $26 at Amazon Prefer to listen? Audible has a 30-day free trial available right now.Try Audible for free PrologueIn the grand scheme of history, it was nothing.
A blip, a breath.The time it took Smith to pocket what might have looked like a matchbook or stick of gum to an unwitting child but was, in fact, 0.7 grams of powdered Colombian cocaine — flown in from Medellín, cut with amphetamine in Miami, and offered to him in Southampton by a boy he knew from nights out in the city.
0.7 grams heavier, he loped back through the crush of rhythmless elbows and cloying perfume, which wafted up and dissolved in the damp and sultry night — the very last of summer. Looking around, it was really just a restaurant.By the front door, at least fifty people huddled, breathing down each other's necks as they shouted the names they hoped would capture the doorman's attention, while in the backyard, hundreds congregated.
Dozens of tables now shook with the weight of dancing, bodies alit with the particular mania reserved for the end of East Coast summers, when one becomes aware of the changing season, the coming cold.But for now, it was silk and linen, the expensive musk of strangers.
Every face appeared familiar — some because he actually knew them while others only bore a sun-tanned resemblance, the pleasing symmetry of the rich.These were the faces which seemed to populate the whole of his young life: colleagues and one-night stands from the clubs ca...