Alumni Publications
We are thrilled to share the following news about recent books, articles, and other publications written by Horace Mann School alumni.
Photo: © Arielle Gray
As publisher Hogarth Books explains, “A historic presidential campaign changes the trajectory of a young Black man’s life in the highly anticipated debut novel from one of The New Yorker’s rising stars.”
EXCERPT: I’d seen the Senator speak a few times before my life got caught up, however distantly, with his, but the first time I can remember paying real attention was when he delivered the speech announcing his run for the Presidency.
When David first hears the Senator from Illinois speak, he feels deep ambivalence. Intrigued by the Senator’s idealistic rhetoric, David also wonders how he’ll balance the fervent belief and inevitable compromises it will take to become the United States’ first Black president.
Great Expectations is about David’s 18 months working for the Senator's presidential campaign. Along the way David meets a myriad of people who raise a set of questions—questions of history, art, race, religion, and fatherhood—that force David to look at his own life anew and come to terms with his identity as a young Black man and father in America.
Meditating on politics and politicians, religion and preachers, fathers and family, Great Expectations is both an emotionally resonant coming-of-age story and a rich novel of ideas, marking the arrival of a major new writer.
Praise for Great Expectations:
“Brilliantly written, piercingly smart, quietly subversive, Great Expectations will be one of the talked-about novels of the year.”—Colum McCann, author of Let the Great World Spin, winner of the National Book Award
“Vinson Cunningham’s novel is a coming-of-age story that captures the soul of America.”—Ron Charles, The Washington Post
“Rarer is a debut that announces a talent like Cunningham’s.”—The New York Times
“One of the smartest and most involving political novels I’ve read in ages.”—The Wall Street Journal
“Vinson Cunningham’s sparkling debut novel, set during the Obama campaign, earns its comparisons to Henry James.”—Slate
“An innovative, resolutely distinctive book . . . ceaselessly searching and inventive . . . indispensable.”—The Nation
“This is a novel of so many things—love and pride and pity and politics and sex and God and fatherhood—but, ultimately, it is about the human ambition to make sense of the troubled waters of our times. Brilliantly written, piercingly smart, quietly subversive, Great Expectations will be one of the talked-about novels of the year.”—Colum McCann, author of Let the Great World Spin, winner of the National Book Award
“The aptly titled Great Expectations announces Vinson Cunningham as a novelist of singular style, wit, and ambition. Read Great Expectations and see our recent past, our present, and even our future anew.”—Angela Flournoy, author of The Turner House, finalist for the National Book Award
“The vivid attention to detail in Great Expectations creates a singular, and sobering, mood—an ambient rumination on the recent, and seemingly very distant, past.”—The Boston Globe
“Vinson Cunningham’s novel is a coming-of-age story that captures the soul of America.”—Ron Charles, The Washington Post
“Rarer is a debut that announces a talent like Cunningham’s.”—The New York Times
“One of the smartest and most involving political novels I’ve read in ages.”—The Wall Street Journal
“Vinson Cunningham’s sparkling debut novel, set during the Obama campaign, earns its comparisons to Henry James.”—Slate
“An innovative, resolutely distinctive book . . . ceaselessly searching and inventive . . . indispensable.”—The Nation
“This is a novel of so many things—love and pride and pity and politics and sex and God and fatherhood—but, ultimately, it is about the human ambition to make sense of the troubled waters of our times. Brilliantly written, piercingly smart, quietly subversive, Great Expectations will be one of the talked-about novels of the year.”—Colum McCann, author of Let the Great World Spin, winner of the National Book Award
“The aptly titled Great Expectations announces Vinson Cunningham as a novelist of singular style, wit, and ambition. Read Great Expectations and see our recent past, our present, and even our future anew.”—Angela Flournoy, author of The Turner House, finalist for the National Book Award
“The vivid attention to detail in Great Expectations creates a singular, and sobering, mood—an ambient rumination on the recent, and seemingly very distant, past.”—The Boston Globe