Rob Franklin’s Recommended Reading List
Photograph of Rob Franklin by Emma Trim
Rob Franklin is a writer of fiction and poetry, and the author of the anticipated debut novel Great Black Hope. Born and raised in Atlanta, Rob Franklin is also a cofounder of Art for Black Lives. A Kimbilio Fiction Fellow and finalist for the New England Review Emerging Writer Award, he has published work in New England Review, Prairie Schooner, and The Rumpus among others. Franklin lives in Brooklyn, New York, and teaches writing at the School of Visual Arts. He shares his recommended reading list with us below!
To learn more about Rob and his inspiring career, visit here.
“Lewis’s debut, inspired by her years working as a reporter for Buzzfeed news, captures the kaleidoscopic frenzy of the digital age — how we consume information, a thousand images at once, and the overwhelm this has on our relationships. Despite this subject, or perhaps because of it, she writes in spare, lyrical prose that feels reminiscent of favorites like Maggie Nelson.”
“In a book that moves between memoir and reportage, Okeowo excavates Alabama’s histories of dispossession and redemption; it reminded me of Joan Didion’s writing about the South, distinguished by the ambivalence and affection only a native Alabamian could put on the page.”
“In sensuous and striking prose, Newell takes us on a sex worker’s slow descent into obsessive madness against the backdrop of a tech-rich San Francisco. I was reminded, delightfully, of both Anora and The Bell Jar —and even more delightfully, of late nights out in San Francisco, doing things I shouldn’t have done.”
“Have you ever had that feeling— a tightness in your chest, rising to your throat — that might come out as a laugh or a sob, you’re not yet sure? That’s how I felt the whole time reading this stunning debut about fidelity, family, and friendship. Like a laugh at a funeral, or a punchline that hurts.”
“To experiment, not just with voice or plot, but with structure takes a kind of daring and mastery of craft so few possess; to do so in a way that manages to ask essential questions about the choices we make and the roles we play in our lives is even rarer. Reading it, I kept thinking back to the first time I watched “Mulholland Drive.” I finished it with full-body chills.”
“Hilarious, wry, and tender, Duboff’s debut follows a constellation of late-twenties/early-thirties personalities loosely connected to media in New York. On the periphery of fame, or in the realm of what we today call “influence,” they serve as a prism through which to look at alienation in the modern city, and the intimacies that prevail despite it. I devoured it.”
Read More
