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In
Memoriam:
E. Lynn Harris
E. Lynn Harris's family, friends and fans mourn the passing of our
beloved author. He died on Thursday, July 23, 2009 in Los Angeles.
He was 54.
In an obituary in the New York Times, Bruce Weber described
him as "one of the nation's most popular writers," and said: "Mr.
Harris clearly tapped a rich vein of reader interest with his racy
and sometimes graphic tales of affluent, ambitious, powerful black
men - athletes, businessmen, lawyers and the like - who nonetheless
struggled with their attraction to both men and women. His books
married the superficial glamour of jet-setting potboilers with an
emotional candor that shed light on a segment of society that had
received little attention: black men on the down low - that is, men
who are publicly heterosexual but secretly have sex with men. Mr.
Harris, who was openly gay but who lived for many years in denial or
shame or both over that fact, was able to draw on his own
experiences to make credible the emotional conflicts of his
characters, and his readers, many of them women, were drawn to his
books because they addressed issues that were often surreptitiously
pertinent to their own lives."
Read the complete obituary
here
E. Lynn Harris was the author of eleven novels, including
Invisible Life and A Love of My Own, and a memoir,
What Become of the Brokenhearted. He placed ten consecutive
books on the New York Times bestseller list. There are over 4
million copies of his books in print.
Check back here for details of a memorial service to be held in
Atlanta sometime in the next month.
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