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Title: What Becomes of the Brokenhearted : A Memoir by E. LYNN HARRIS ISBN: 0-385-50264-8 Publisher: Doubleday Pub. Date: 08 July, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.03 (39 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: I¿ll Be Searching Everywhere Just to Find Someone to Care
Comment: You have read the antics of Basil and Raymond in E. Lynn Harris' fictional accounts of life in the black male Gay world. Now, readers can get the truth up close and personal in this moving, chilling memoir, What Becomes of the Brokenhearted by this New York Times best selling author. Harris' first book, Invisible Life is considered a classic. Not since James Baldwin has a writer dared to venture into the taboo territory of black male homosexuality.
Harris exposes his life for the world to see-- straight, no chaser. Raised in Little Rock, Arkansas, the oldest child and only boy, with three younger sisters, he recounts the physical abuse by his father that left him emotionally scarred well into his adulthood. He was constantly belittled, called a sissy, and beaten by this man, whom he only wanted to please. It was not until he was twelve years old that he escaped the torment when his parents divorced, and his father was no longer a part of his life. Harris desperately wanted to belong, but was always self-conscious about his small, slight body. He found he could get attention from the cool kids by acting out but when an incident almost caused his expulsion from school, he buckled down and became a model student. As the new South dawned in the 1970s, he decided he wanted to attend an integrated school and so began his exposure to other neighborhoods and meeting and becoming friends with wealthy whites. But plagued with self-esteem issues, he felt inferior to not only wealthy whites, but middle-class black kids, often envying their neighborhoods and two-parent families. As a result, he concocted an identity with a middle-class background in order to belong. Additionally he was constantly struggling with his sexuality, pursuing girls but having feelings about boys.
Harris gives a first hand account of the class issues among African Americans in the south and the social life on a college campus. Education, job status, money, and a Mercedes gave him entry to the Buppie world but was not enough to fill the void that was threatening his existence. In searching for satisfaction, he moved from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville to Dallas, to D.C., to Chicago to New York and Atlanta, always looking for something or somebody to which he could belong; someone to love and to be loved. He found solace in alcohol and struggled with depression that was compounded by his battle about his sexuality. Meanwhile, he had to confront the fact that many of his friends were dropping off like flies, succumbing to AIDS. He recounts how there are many black men who are locked into a down-low situation-- in relationships with women, while cruising the gay bars on the weekend. A recent article published in the New York Times about this very topic validates that this in fact is a dilemma in the homophobic black community
This is an emotional book which took Harris seven years to write and one he needed to write as a catharsis. There is no revelation of child sexual abuse, just a boy who had feelings he could not explain nor understand. His journey to self-love and acceptance is inspiring. E. Lynn said at his reading, "Don't feel sorry for me because this has a happy ending." Indeed, Harris has conquered his demons as he has returned to the place he most wanted to leave, Arkansas, as he embarks on a stint as a writer-in-residence at his alma mater, the University of Arkansas for the Fall '03 semester. His fans also finally get to find out what the "E" in his name means. I highly recommend this book.
Dera Williams
APOOO BookClub
Rating: 4
Summary: A Great Triumph!
Comment: E. Lynn Harris is a great fiction writer, which sometimes makes the transition to fact difficult. But his life story, which represents triumph of the spirit and determination to overcome obstacles is a true winner.
The book opens in the early 1990's, prior to Harris's success as an author, and uses an attempted suicide as a starting point for this biography. It's a chilling opening, but it sets the tone for many of the harsh realities presented by Harris.
An early childhood filled with abuse, teenage years spent questioning sexuality, and lifelong battles with depression certainly aren't the stuff of happy memories, yet Harris raises his many issues with clarity and purpose.
The two sections of Harris's life that make for the most gripping reading are his college experiences and his battles with depression. The college years are both funny and heartbreaking, and Harris is at his best when presenting this type of material. His entry and rise up the leadership rung of his college fraternity make for the best reading, if only because they are cast against a backdrop of his emerging sexuality (and the challenges that raises as a Greek), and his role as the first male cheerleader at the University of Alabama (which gives Harris an opportunity to tell some great stories). His battles with depression are significant as he comes to grasp with the fact that his depression is chemical based, and not the result of (as he believed) his issues with his sexuality. This portion of the book really hits the reader hard, and his overall success in treatment truly warms the heart.
Anyone familiar with Harris's successes as an author know how the story ends - he has become incredibly successful, and happy with who he is, which is the ultimate triumph of this book. Fans of his fiction will enjoy getting to know the real E. Lynn Harris - and fans of autobiographies should also enjoy this gritty yet warm story.
Rating: 5
Summary: What Becomes of the Brokenhearted : A Memoir
Comment: Harris is one of America's top writers, chronicling the experiences of gay and heterosexual African Americans through books such as Invisible Life and Just as I Am. His first nonfiction offering provides listeners with a glimpse into his life, starting with his childhood in Little Rock, AR, with an abusive father and loving mother. The author discovers his sexual identity in high school and college and has bouts with depression and alcohol abuse. Harris pulls no punches, and listeners will want to reach out and touch the little boy who must deal with the daily whippings from the man who turns out to be his stepfather; the young man who wants to find love with another man but must hide his feelings from other blacks at his college; the man who goes into sales at IBM and deals with the pain of disastrous relationships with drinks and late-night parties; and the man who realizes that writing his story can help his people learn the truth about the homosexuals they live with and love. Read by Richard Allen, this wonderful book is full of passion and joy and provides a message of hope to those within the gay community and those fighting depression. For all libraries, especially those with collections in African American, gay, lesbian, and transgender studies and in mental health
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Title: Naughty or Nice by Eric Jerome Dickey ISBN: 0525947760 Publisher: E P Dutton Pub. Date: 27 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: On the Down Low: A Journey Into the Lives of "Straight" Black Men Who Sleep with Men by J.L. King ISBN: 0767913981 Publisher: Broadway Books Pub. Date: 14 April, 2004 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
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Title: A Love of My Own by E. Lynn Harris ISBN: 0385492715 Publisher: Anchor Pub. Date: 24 June, 2003 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: The Other Woman by Eric Jerome Dickey ISBN: 0525947248 Publisher: E P Dutton Pub. Date: 12 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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Title: Not a Day Goes By : A Novel by E. LYNN HARRIS ISBN: 038549825X Publisher: Anchor Pub. Date: 29 May, 2001 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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