Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
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Also this issue: Fit To Print Chinese Ceramics Today
Hide Sadohara: New Work Swoosh Nrityagram Dance Ensemble Bridging the Gap Puppetry of the Penis 1776 Mao in the Boardroom: Marketing Genius From The Mind Of The Master Guerrilla |
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July 10-16, 2003
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E. Lynn Harris
At first, novelist E. Lynn Harris' new What Becomes of the Brokenhearted (Doubleday) moves just like one of his naughty, chatty soap operas -- its young, black professional main character coming up from a closeted gay childhood in Arkansas, through self-publishing and selling books from the back of a car and finally to the triumph of being a New York Times best-selling author. That's the feel of his last two African-American showbiz-focused novels. It's par for the course, until you realize that Brokenhearted is his autobiography. But Harris' life has been so triumphant because of his willingness to detail the deeply depressing circumstances that led him to stirring works like Invisible Life and Just As I Am. Perhaps more telling than even this autobiography (and it's telling), Harris' well-off characters always seem one step away from closeted, soul-crushing disaster. And that makes Harris, the winner of 2000's James Baldwin Award for Literary Excellence, at one with his heroes.
E. Lynn Harris, Tue., July 15, 7 p.m., free, Free Library of Philadelphia, 19th and Vine sts., 215-567-4341.
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