Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

A son of the Black bourgeoisie grapples with the limits of his privilege. “In the grand scheme of history, it was nothing”: That’s the opening of this smart, scintillating debut novel, as 20-something queer protagonist David Smith pockets 0.7 grams of cocaine—“what might have looked like a matchbook or stick of gum to an unwitting child”—at a Hamptons nightspot. Smith’s arrest by plainclothes officers moments later will set off an intense personal reckoning, coming, as it does, less than a month after the death of his best friend and roommate, Elle England, from what appears to be a drug overdose; the tragedy has been tabloid fodder ever since her body was discovered in a Bronx park, miles from their Brooklyn apartment. Smith, son of a retired HBCU president, and Elle, daughter of a 1990s neo-soul singer, are in a coterie of bright young things that also includes Carolyn Astley, a well-heeled blond having an affair with a trendy married chef. (The opening of his pretentious restaurant, Inducio, is one of the novel’s many deliciously mordant set pieces.) Carolyn dabbles in AA, and Smith himself harbors a “lingering suspicion…that indeed he had a problem: some unnameable ache that would eat him alive.” As he awaits his court date, he’ll attend a series of perfunctory group treatment sessions on Skype, then head south to Atlanta for Christmas with his family (for whom he is a “liability to be managed,” he thinks) and spend hours driving amid the landmarks of his childhood, reflecting on the “Black kids who’d grown up as he did, with professional mothers and ever-present fathers, lessons in lacrosse and piano—who’d bottomed out young on some compulsion to self-destruct.” 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. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

A young, queer Black man navigates a complex set of circumstances in Franklin's dynamic and excellent debut novel. The product of a stable, successful family, Smith is primed for upward mobility and is duly surprised to find himself in legal trouble for drug possession. As he's still coping with the recent loss of his friend and roommate, Elle, the consequences of his arrest set him on a course of soul-searching and introspection, as he feels trapped in the liminal spaces of race and class. Smith is a character worth spending time with, full of pathos and insightful observations as he lives through his wayward twenties. “He loved the huddled musk of bodies in a crowded restaurant, the slink of a martini glass, and even the look of an olive, though the taste he found revolting; he loved the girls in their barely-there dresses, their faces meeting over a flame; how there was always another party, an address sent without context by one of his bad-influence friends.” Franklin deftly develops his characters, vividly rendering their perceptions and bringing the reader into the scene through elegant prose.

Publishers Weekly
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In Franklin’s radiant debut, a queer Black man reckons with his class privilege and drug use in the aftermath of his best friend’s mysterious death. David Smith, a 25-year-old tech worker and aspiring writer, is partying with old friends in the Hamptons when he’s arrested for cocaine possession. After returning to his Brooklyn apartment, Smith is jolted by memories of his best friend and roommate’s tragic death three weeks earlier. Elle England, the daughter of a famous soul singer, was found dead on the banks of the Bronx River, rumored to have taken fentanyl-laced cocaine. After Smith reluctantly tells his well-to-do Atlanta parents about his arrest, they hire a white Southampton lawyer, correctly presuming that the man’s “local color” will work in Smith’s favor. The plot is tightly woven and satisfying, culminating in Smith’s visit to Atlanta, where he’s hounded by a journalist looking for a scoop on Elle’s death. What makes the novel really shine, however, is Franklin’s deeply perceptive view into Smith’s self-appraisal, which develops as he undergoes court-ordered drug treatment and joins a group of Black artists in homeless advocacy work, prompting him to reflect on the cost of going along with what his parents and friends want for him. Along the way, the author keenly portrays Smith’s grief over Elle and how they fell into their hard-partying life. Readers will be rapt. Agents: Audrey Crooks and Ellen Levine, Trident Media Group. (June)