An Interview With E. Lynn Harris
By Keith Boykin, in books
Wednesday, July 2 2003, 12:56AM
I first met E. Lynn Harris almost ten years ago. At that time, he was a young new writer with a dream. Now, at 47, he's written several bestselling novels and he's ready to release his first work of nonfiction, What Becomes of the Brokenhearted. In his tell-it-all memoir, Lynn talks about childhood abuse, attempted suicide and drinking. But he also writes about the search for love and truth in his own life. I selected his memoir as the book of the month for this site, and I spoke to Lynn yesterday by telephone at his new home in Atlanta.
Keith: How do you like Atlanta?
E. Lynn Harris: It's slower than New York and I’m getting re-acclimated to it, but I love my house, so it has pros and cons.
Keith: Why did you move back?
E. Lynn Harris: It was going to be easier to commute. I'm going to be teaching at Arkansas this fall, and that Arkansas-New York commute is a bear.
Keith: I remember hearing you talk about an earlier title for your book. I think it was called For Colored Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Was Not Enough. What made you change it?
E. Lynn Harris: It just seemed to be more appropriate. It just seemed to fit, and I really do think it will give me a broader range of an audience because more people can relate to that than the other title. And the book turned out not to be as much about being black and gay as it turned out to be about being human.
Keith: Why did you want to write a memoir now?
E. Lynn Harris: I felt like it would help some people, and I had been working on it for seven years and I wanted to get it out. The longer it hung around, the longer I had to deal with the implications of the memoir, and I really wanted to move on.
Keith: Do you expect a different audience for this book than for your novels?
E. Lynn Harris: I think I might. If it's positioned right, and of course Doubleday will do everything in their powers, I think it might bring me some new fans.
Keith: Has Doubleday been supportive of your memoir?
E. Lynn Harris: Yes.
Keith: Was it difficult for you to reveal personal information in your memoir?
E. Lynn Harris: It was difficult but it happened. It's a sign of who I am as an individual, and it wouldn't have been as strong a memoir had I left a lot of that stuff out.
Keith: You write about your experience with abuse as a child…Were you afraid that revealing that might embarrass people in your family or expose something you might not want people to know?
E. Lynn Harris: It was a concern, but it was not a big enough concern where I would have left it out because a lot of kids go through that. It wasn't abuse by anybody who mattered in my life. It wasn't abuse of my mother. It wasn't abuse of cousins. And it wasn't sexual abuse. So no, it happened.
Keith: What do you hope people will get out of reading your book?
E. Lynn Harris: That if he can do it, I can too. And it doesn't necessarily mean to become a writer as much as it means to survive and make something of your life.
Keith: What do you think will be most surprising to readers of your memoir?
E. Lynn Harris: That it hasn't been a charmed life. The depression, the drinking, the lack of self-esteem. I think all of that is stuff that people would have gone through. And I don't know that I come across so confident and cocky, but when people do see my now, it's a good life that I live. I went on a paperback tour last week and I read the memoir instead of reading the paperback and already people were like, 'Oh wow, I can relate to that" or 'That's really sad.' People have already been writing me who've gotten advance copies of it. So I've accomplished what I set out to do, and that's for people to be touched and to re-think their own lives.
Keith: Ten years ago, did you ever imagine you would have the success you have today?
E. Lynn Harris: No. I get asked that question a lot. I just wanted to be happy, and so the success of the books has been wonderful but what's been more important is the peace of mind that I have within myself. The happiness that I have.
Keith: How can this book help people?
E. Lynn Harris: It's going to help, like the novels have, in terms of increasing understanding of what it's like to be black and gay in this country. And I think the people will appreciate it. Interestingly enough, people who've read my other stuff seem to think that this is my best work, and these are people whose opinions I value. So I'm really really happy about that. And I think it's going to help people from all different walks of life, because while the story has not ended, we're in a period of grace, if you will, a period of happiness, where it ends…And a lot of that has not only to do with the success that I've had as much as it has to do with growing older and becoming wiser on so many levels…Hopefully, someone can take my memoir and learn the lesson quicker than I did. That would be great if that happened. Young men and women don't have to go through what I did. They can learn some lessons from me.
Keith: Is there a particularly significant lesson for young black gay, lesbian, bisexual people?
E. Lynn Harris: Yes, that truth is powerful….The other thing that's funny to me is that people are like, 'Gosh, you're so honest' with the memoir, and I'm thinking, why write a memoir if you're not going to be honest.
Keith: A lot of people do though. Politicians do it all the time.
E. Lynn Harris: What's truth is truth and you can't really change that.
Keith: Thanks. Thank you for the interview.
E. Lynn Harris: Thank you.