Current:Home > ContactBook excerpt: "Great Expectations" by Vinson Cunningham -TrueNorth Finance Path
Book excerpt: "Great Expectations" by Vinson Cunningham
View
Date:2025-04-14 03:46:59
We may receive an affiliate commission from anything you buy from this article.
In "Great Expectations" (Hogarth), the debut novel of New Yorker essayist and theater critic Vinson Cunningham, a young man is transformed by working for the presidential campaign of an aspirational Black senator from Illinois.
Read an excerpt below.
"Great Expectations" by Vinson Cunningham
$21 at AmazonPrefer to listen? Audible has a 30-day free trial available right now.
Try Audible for freei'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. He spoke before the pillars of the Illinois statehouse, where, something like a century and a half earlier, Abraham Lincoln had performed the same ritual. The Senator brought his elegant wife and young daughters onstage when he made his entrance. A song by U2 played as they waved. All four wore long coats and breathed ghosts of visible vapor into the cold February morning. It was as frigid and sunny out there in Springfield as it was almost a thousand miles away, where I sat alone, hollering distance from the northern woods of Central Park, watching the Senator on TV.
"Giving all praise and honor to God for bringing us together here today," he began. I recognized that black-pulpit touch immediately, and felt almost flattered by the feeling—new to me—of being pandered to so directly by someone who so nakedly wanted something in return. It was later reported that he had spent the moments before the address praying in a circle with his family and certain friends, including the light-skinned stentor who was his pastor in Chicago. Perhaps the churchy greeting was a case of spillover from the sound of the pastor's prayer. Or—and from the vantage of several years, this seems by far the likelier answer—the Senator had begun, even then, at the outset of his campaign, to understand his supporters, however small their number at that point, as congregants, as members of a mystical body, their bonds invisible but real. They waved and stretched their arms toward the stage; some lifted red, white, and blue signs emblazoned with his name in a sleek sans serif. The whole thing seemed aimed at making you cry.
I wonder now (this, again, with all the benefit and distortion of hindsight) whether these first words of the campaign and their hungry reception by the crowd were the sharpest harbinger—more than demography or conscious strategy—of the victory to come. Toward the end of the speech, during a stream of steadily intensifying clauses whose final pooling was a plea to join him in the work of renewal, he wondered "if you"—the assembled—"feel destiny calling." In bidding goodbye, he said, "Thank you," and then, more curiously, "I love you."
Excerpted from "Great Expectations" by Vinson Cunningham. Copyright © 2024 by Vinson Cunningham. Excerpted by permission of Hogarth Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House, LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Get the book here:
"Great Expectations" by Vinson Cunningham
$21 at Amazon $25 at Barnes & NobleBuy locally from Bookshop.org
For more info:
"Great Expectations" by Vinson Cunningham (Hogarth), in Hardcover, eBook and Audio formats
veryGood! (77)
Related
- Working Well: When holidays present rude customers, taking breaks and the high road preserve peace
- Sean Diddy Combs Breaks Silence About Video Appearing to Show Him Assault Cassie
- Preakness Stakes payouts 2024: Complete betting results after Seize the Grey wins
- Murders of 2 girls and 2 young women in Canada in the 1970s linked to American serial rapist
- Moving abroad can be expensive: These 5 countries will 'pay' you to move there
- Scottie Scheffler planning to play next week after 'hectic' week at 2024 PGA Championship
- WNBA investigating $100,000 annual sponsorships for Aces players from Las Vegas tourism authority
- Ship that caused deadly Baltimore bridge collapse to be refloated and moved
- How to watch new prequel series 'Dexter: Original Sin': Premiere date, cast, streaming
- Indiana Pacers dominate New York Knicks in Game 7 to advance to Eastern conference final
Ranking
- Gen. Mark Milley's security detail and security clearance revoked, Pentagon says
- 17-year-old girl sex trafficked from Mexico to US is rescued after texting 911 for help
- Orioles legend Cal Ripken Jr. thinks Jackson Holliday may have needed more time in the minors
- Man charged with punching actor Steve Buscemi is held on $50,000 bond
- EU countries double down on a halt to Syrian asylum claims but will not yet send people back
- 3 Spanish tourists killed, multiple people injured during attack in Afghanistan
- Benedictine Sisters condemn Harrison Butker's speech, say it doesn't represent college
- Designer David Rockwell on celebrating a sense of ritual
Recommendation
House passes bill to add 66 new federal judgeships, but prospects murky after Biden veto threat
Off the Grid: Sally breaks down USA TODAY's daily crossword puzzle, Home Stretch
Dabney Coleman, 9 to 5 and Tootsie actor, dies at 92
Dow closes above 40,000 for first time, notching new milestone
The Louvre will be renovated and the 'Mona Lisa' will have her own room
Tyson Fury says split decision in favor of Oleksandr Usyk motivated by sympathy for Ukraine
Caitlin Clark back in action: How to watch Indiana Fever vs. Connecticut Sun on Monday
Rough return to ‘normal’ sends Scheffler down the leaderboard at PGA Championship