Pioneer into secret black gay lifestyle goes straight in latest novel
Best selling writer E. Lynn Harris can still remember the first time he realized he was poor.
His family had been invited to the housewarming of a well-to-do family in his hometown of Fayetteville, Ark., and Harris, then a young boy fresh from an afternoon of playing outside, was sitting in the living room when another guest remarked on his appearance. For much of the visit, he tried desperately to tuck his bare, dusty feet underneath the sofa.
It was those childhood memories that helped motivate his success in later years.
"I didn't grow up in the kind of environment that my characters grew up in, or the kind of environment that I live in now," the 52-year-old author says. "It was one of the things that I always aspired to."
His fame has made him a part of a more privileged world, and his success can be partly attributed to showing his readers a world with which they were previously unfamiliar: the secret world of professional, bisexual black men living as heterosexuals.
This week, Harris is back after a two-year hiatus with his 10th novel, "Just Too Good to Be True." In some ways, the book returns to some of his typical themes — family, relationships, fame — but Harris also takes on new territory, focusing for the first time on a straight relationship.
His writing falls into several genres, including gay and lesbian fiction, African American fiction, urban fiction, and so on. And with 4 million copies in print, the books are also best sellers. Pioneer into secret black gay lifestyle goes straight in latest novel
Hartford Courant, United States
His family had been invited to the housewarming of a well-to-do family in his hometown of Fayetteville, Ark., and Harris, then a young boy fresh from an afternoon of playing outside, was sitting in the living room when another guest remarked on his appearance. For much of the visit, he tried desperately to tuck his bare, dusty feet underneath the sofa.
It was those childhood memories that helped motivate his success in later years.
"I didn't grow up in the kind of environment that my characters grew up in, or the kind of environment that I live in now," the 52-year-old author says. "It was one of the things that I always aspired to."
His fame has made him a part of a more privileged world, and his success can be partly attributed to showing his readers a world with which they were previously unfamiliar: the secret world of professional, bisexual black men living as heterosexuals.
This week, Harris is back after a two-year hiatus with his 10th novel, "Just Too Good to Be True." In some ways, the book returns to some of his typical themes — family, relationships, fame — but Harris also takes on new territory, focusing for the first time on a straight relationship.
His writing falls into several genres, including gay and lesbian fiction, African American fiction, urban fiction, and so on. And with 4 million copies in print, the books are also best sellers. Pioneer into secret black gay lifestyle goes straight in latest novel
Hartford Courant, United States
posted by Tom Jackson @ Friday, July 18, 2008
1 Comments:
This should be very interesting, eager to see Harris's take on a straight relationship. He is spot-on with the gay culture from this gay guy's POV.
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