Just As I Am
A Novel
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
E. Lynn Harris's blend of rich, romantic storytelling and controversial contemporary issues like race and bisexuality have found an enthusiastic and diverse audience across America. Readers celebrate the arrival in paperback of his second novel, Just As I Am, which picks up where Invisible Life left off, introducing Harris's appealing and authentic characters to a new set of joys, conflicts, and choices. Raymond, a young black lawyer from the South, struggles to come to terms with his sexuality and with the grim reality of AIDS. Nicole, an aspiring singer/actress, experiences frustration in both her career and in her attempts to find a genuine love relationship. Both characters share an eclectic group of friends who challenge them, and the reader, to look at themselves and the world around thern through different eyes. By portraying Nicole's and Raymond's joys, as well as their pain, Harris never ceases to remind us that life, like love, is about self-acceptance. In this vivid portrait of contemporary black life, with all its pressures and the complications of bisexuality, AIDS, and racism, Harris confirms a faith in the power of love -- love of all kinds -- to thrill and to heal, which will warm the hearts of readers everywhere.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Set in a black upper-middle class milieu, this unappealing potboiler attempts to detail the lives and loves of an intersecting group of overachievers with a variety of sexual appetites. Harris ( Invisible Life ) has managed to capture the material aspects of the good life and the East Coast black gay scene, but he has also propped up his labored prose on a well-intentioned scaffold of gay activist issues. The result is more checklist than novel: when a character is introduced, a demographic stereotype is quickly outlined to elicit the reader's mechanical response. Successful, handsome and bisexual, African American sports lawyer Raymond Tyler Jr. has just moved to Atlanta from New York. But he's plagued by problems. His respected and politically active Alabama family think he's straight. He's hot for a supposedly hetero colleague at the law firm who seems to be coming on to him, but who fears being exposed. His newest client, a sexy star NFL quarterback and arrogant troublemaker, wants a little action too and doesn't mind embarrassing Tyler to get it. Meanwhile, Tyler's former lover, a New York actress, is dealing with a rich, pushy and cartoonishly possessive lover. Melodramatic and banal, this book is soap opera material. Author tour.
