R.I.P. "E. LYNN HARRIS" – (June 20, 1955 – July 23, 2009)
The late E. Lynn Harris was a pioneering best-selling author and entrepreneur who captured millions with his ability to paint the realistic turns and twists of African-American men involved in secretive gay relationships. Publicist Laura Gilmore said Harris died Thursday, July 23rd after being stricken at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills.
Harris had unprecedented success as an openly gay black author with his strength as a romance writer led some to call him the “male Terry McMillan.” He went on to mainstream success with works such as the novel “Love of My Own” and the memoir “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted.”
His self-published 1994 debut, “Invisible Life,” was a coming-of-age story that dealt with the then-taboo topic. “If you were African-American and you were gay, you kept your mouth shut and you went on and did what everybody else did,” he said. “You had girlfriends, you lived a life that your parents had dreamed for you.”
His writing fell into several genres, including gay and lesbian fiction, African-American fiction and urban fiction. But he found success in showing readers a new side of African-American life: the secret world of professional, bisexual black men living as heterosexuals. “Basketball Jones,” his last book, focused on a hidden relationship between a successful business professional in New Orleans and an NBA star.
Harris published 11 novels, 10 of which were on The New York Times
best-seller list. More than 4 million copies of his books are in print, according to his publisher, Doubleday.
Bibliography
- Invisible Life (1991 Self Published – 1994 Mass Marketed)
- Just As I Am (1995) *
- And This Too Shall Pass (1997)
- If This World Were Mine (1998) **
- Abide With Me (2000)
- Not A Day Goes By (2000)
- Money Can’t Buy Me Love (2000)
- From the Book Got to Be Real – 4 Original Love Stories by Eric Jerome Dickey, Marcus Major, E. Lynn Harris and Colin Channer
- Any Way the Wind Blows (2002) *
- A Love Of My Own (2003) *
- What Becomes Of The Brokenhearted – A Memoir (2004)
- I Say a Little Prayer (2006)
- Just Too Good To Be True (2008)
- Basketball Jones” (2009)
* Winner of Blackboard’s Novel of the Year Award
** Winner of James Baldwin Award for Literary Excellence
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