Novelist E. Lynn Harris has made a career writing hilarious stories about being black, gay and fabulous. Sometimes those characters are closeted, sometimes not. Next week Harris' 13th book, "Basketball Jones" (Doubleday), will be released. Harris, who splits his time between Atlanta and Arkansas, where he teaches, recently talked about parenting, writing and saying his prayers.
Q: You're a big sports fan right?
A: Yeah, I love sports. I'm coming back from a basketball game now. Arkansas/Mississippi State. My son is a cheerleader at Arkansas.
Q: Your latest book centers on a star NBA player who is not out of the closet. The protagonist is an NBA husband. I know there are NBA wives, but how many NBA husbands are there out there?
A: [Laughs] I would probably say, like the national average [of people in the general population who are gay], one of every 10 players [has a husband].
Q: A few years ago you were brought in to counsel an NBA star who was thinking of coming out. He didn't, but I'm curious about what your advice was?
A: I was just approached [to help], but he decided against it. To this day, I don't know who it was, but it basically gave me the idea for the new book. Partly I wrote the book because I did not have a conversation with the player. It kind of surprised me when I got the initial call [from his representatives]. It was not John Amaechi, who had already come out.
Q: Once you said you knew you weren't a James Baldwin or a Toni Morrison, in terms of your writing. You once told your publisher that you wanted to take advanced writing classes so you could grow. What have you done on your own to get better?
A: Surprisingly, it has been through teaching that I think my writing has improved. I teach creative writing at the University of Arkansas, and last semester I had a great class of students, and I feel like I learned more than they did. Getting up in front of people every day, talking about writing and talking about the process, has made me a better writer.
Q: Critics refer to your fiction as fun and energetic but don't necessarily shower it with high literary praise. But they laud the literary volumes you've edited or co-edited, such as "Gumbo" or the new "Best African American Fiction: 2009." So are you a stronger writer or editor?
A: When I read, I read literary fiction; the Toni Morrisons, the Colson Whiteheads. To be a good writer, you have to be a good reader. So when I'm asked to [edit], I always jump at the chance because I like to read writers out there who are not getting the attention because they write literary fiction.
Q: When your first book, "Invisible Life," was published in 1994, your son would have been about 7. How did you talk to him about your being gay?
A: We've never had the conversation, and there really has been no need for it. I've just lived my life and tried to be a good example for him. For instance, with my son dating, he's instructed that it's OK to date, but he's not to live like a married man until he gets married. So that means when he brings his girlfriend home to [visit me] in Atlanta, she's got to stay someplace else.
Q: So you're old-school like that?
A: I'm old-school like that. But the same rule applies to me, even though I'm the one instituting the rule. I won't have any overnight guests when my son is there. I do that out of respect for him.
Q: You're laying down the law, but you can't get married.
A: The marriage thing, I hate to say that it's much ado about nothing, because certain citizens aren't given the same rights as other citizens are. But I'm not the marrying kind anyway, so that's why it doesn't seem that important to me.
Q: Since you live part time in Arkansas, under a new Arkansas law, you and a partner couldn't adopt a child or be foster parents because you're gay [the law bars unmarried straight couples as well]. The ACLU is mounting a challenge to the law. Ever consider lending your voice to that effort?
A: It's an absolute shameful law, but I haven't put my toe into politics. It's a really sad law, because it affects African-American kids more so, in the state of Arkansas, than other kids, because there are a lot of [African-American] kids who will never be adopted. [His son is adopted.] And I think, as a gay man, the thing that has aggravated me, is that people go right to the sex. They don't go to what kind of people we are. What kind of person I am, what kind of father I've turned out to be.
Q: I could see you using that fight as fodder for a 14th book.
A: I definitely want to attack the issue of being a gay parent. Right now I don't know if I want to do it in a form of fiction or a form of nonfiction.
Q: Speaking of politics and fiction, what would one of your characters wear if you were using the inaugural ball as a scene in one of your books?
A: A tuxedo custom made by Everett Hall, for sure. Sterling silver and gold Rolex. He'd get a haircut. He'd get a facial. It would take him all day to get ready.
FICTION
"Basketball Jones" by E. Lynn Harris; Doubleday; 246 pages; $22.95
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