E. Lynn Harris

This has been a rough summer for me as far as loss of personalities that have had an impact on my life on appreciation for things that make me excited to learn that have given me a new found understanding.  Author E. Lynn Harris passed away at the age of 54 on July 23rd.  I was initially as a young woman in ’94 taken a back reading his very first book “Invisible Life” because I wasn’t used to reading about the black gay/bisexual community and it was a bit graphic and I didn’t want to read it.  But at that time I was a college student home for the summer, working part time in retail and befriended an older white gay man who I became really good friends with and he would tell me all of his crazy ass exploits.  After some time, I then decided to come back to reading this book because I figured shoot I hear it from this one person I know so how bad can it be to read a book on it?  Well over a decade later I have evolved in my understanding and some insight into the black gay community, the downlow drama (way before JL King talked about it on Oprah and talked of his experience  and wrote a book on it) and enjoyed the crazy escapism of his books. I always always thought the fictional character Raymond Tyler Jr was basically him in book form. So I guess I got a little bit of insight into Harris thru this character who was popular in a good portion of the early works and showed up periodically in some later ones!!!   Thanks to living in a county with a great great public library system, I have always been able to put in requests for any upcoming book of his and read with fervor once I was able to obtain it. 

Some books were better than others.  I have read alllllllllll of his books include his last one Basketball Jones.  I didn’t care for it that much because the main guy in it was nerve wrecking staying with some guy who was a closeted basketball player.  But I truly loved “Just Too Good To Be True” which was the first of his books I did in an audiobook format.  I enjoyed the storylines and how they intertwined and connected together.   That was definitely a book I would have loved to email to him on how this should be a movie!!  I will truly truly miss being excited about the latest book to come out from him and be able to request from the library.

UPDATE- I actually do have A FINAL CHANCE to be excited about his last book to come out in the fall!!