I'm glad I was already sitting down when I learned this morning that E. Lynn Harris had died. Reading the news in a post from a Facebook friend was like getting punched in the stomach. E. Lynn Harris dead? How can that possibly be? Oh my God...and then, typically, but I'm not through reading him! I was waiting to see what he'd come up with next!
It was that way with me and E Lynn since the beginning when I encountered his "Invisible Life" at the Barnes and Nobles outlet at Jack London Square in the midst of an unusually dark and troubled period of my life. The cover art - all blurred and phyne-ass folk - caught my eye and when I scanned the synopsis I knew I had to give this new author a shot. I brought the book home, opened it up and was instantly hooked. Harris was telling stories of people I knew living lives I understood and opening the curtain to lives I didn't. Downlow men, of whom I'd known my share, men of color, who comprised the majority of my homies, angry and conflicted men - the shock of recognition when I ran into myself was almost more than I could take. But I kept reading. Harris was a wonderful writer who specialized in short chapters that kept you turning the pages to find out what happened next, kinda like the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys cliffhanger mysteries I loved as a kid.
But Harris did more than just tell engrossing, laugh-out-loud, talk-to-the-book stories. In a time when AIDS was rampant and my friends were dying one by one, when sending gays to Alcatraz for quarantine was actually discussed (crazy, but I remember when it was), when the churches turned their back on homosexuals, when paranoia was at its highest, he wrote about young All-American African-American men who were closeted out of fear and what it cost them. He demonstrated with heart , wit and passion just how the Black church and the downlow subculture was contributing to the decimation of a whole community.
But this was no sociological treatise, though you could break it down as such. Harris loved his characters, even the gold diggers, even the family members who turned their backs on their gay sons and brothers, even the closeted bisexual football player, Basil, who spewed anti-gay venom in early books and had sex with men on the side. I often suspected he loved Basil most of all. His characters were three-dimensional and they struggled. Many appeared in several of his books, which could be read as continuing installments or as stand-alone works of can't-wait-to-see-what's-next fiction.
It got to where I couldn't wait for the next Harris book and would be at the bookstore the day they came out to buy them. Once my friend, Tony, who volunteered at the Center for AIDS Services with me, beat me to the punch and showed up with "Abide With Me" before I even knew it was out. And I well recall the Saturday I was at an airport bookstore in Houston and asked the clerk if she had "Not A Day Goes By," knowing damn well it didn't come out until the following Tuesday and she grinned, reached under the counter, and handed me an advance copy! I swear I knew God was lovin' me that day...
Maybe eight years ago, E Lynn came to San Francisco to read and meet fans at A Different Light, the pre-eminent Castro Street bookstore. I ended up in the second row. He came up to the podium in understated but full sartorial splendor and engaged his audience reading the first chapter of his new book. He had us laughing and nodding our heads as he read about a particularly wicked dinner party, and then he told a couple of personal stories before opening it up to let us meet him one by one.
This was my moment to let him know how much his books had helped me, how they had held my hand in dark dark times when I thought I might never emerge, how they had let me know I wasn't alone and things would get better. I wanted to tell him how he made me laugh and how he helped me understand things about myself and others I may not have gotten any other way. I had promised myself that if I ever have the chance to tell my heroes what they mean to me, I will do it, no matter how nervous or tongue-tied I feel. I've done it with Lesley Gore, I've done it recently with Deadlee.
And I did it that warm summer night with E Lynn Harris. I took that moment. I told him what I needed to tell him and his eyes welled up with tears and then mine did. It was contagious! We hugged and thanked each other. There was a long line of fans behind me and it was time to blend back in with the Castro Street throng.
RIP E Lynn Harris. You're already missed.
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