If This World Were Mine »

How to categorize E. Lynn Harris? An African-American novelist? A gay novelist? A literary romance writer? Nothing quite fits, but to Harris s fans, his bestselling novels belong in a genre of their own: one in which the characters are as difficult and complex as their problems, and the solutions as bittersweet and resonant as they often are in life.

Four friends, all graduates of Hampton Institute, keep a collective journal they call "If This World Were Mine," and share their personal diaries each month at a gathering filled with humor, gossip, and affirmation. The four group members are as different as the seasons, yet they all share a love of one another. Yolanda, a media consultant, keeps it going on with a no-nonsense attitude and independence that are balanced by the theatrics of Riley, a former marketing executive whose marriage has reduced her to a "kept woman with kids." Computer engineer Dwight's anger at the world is offset by the compassion of Leland, a gay psychiatrist whose clients make him question why God ever invented sex.

But after five years, the once-strong bonds of friendship are weakening, and the group must handle challenges of work, lost love, and a stranger in their midst. As the group members confront their true feelings toward each other, resentments and long-held secrets surface, and the stability of the group begins to disintegrate. Is their past friendship strong enough to survive the future?

Publishers Weekly

Harris, author of the bestseller And This Too Shall Pass, tells another involving tale of contemporary black lives. Members of a monthly journal-writing group, four African American friends from college days who all live in the Chicago area, help each other through the dramas of their respective lives. They're all approaching 40 and looking for answers: Riley Woodson, a self-proclaimed Black Princess immured in a stultifying marriage; Yolanda Williams, a media consultant; gay psychiatrist Leland Thompson; and Dwight Scott, a computer engineer simmering with hatred for white people. Best friends Leland and Yolanda each want to share life with a responsive mate; Dwight longs to extricate himself from his anger by working in a black-owned business; and Riley dreams of finding fulfillment as a poet and singer. But betrayals in love and business, as well as other conflicts and resentments, threaten to wrench them apart. As the characters work through their individual knots of personal dilemmas, they rediscover the bonds that initially drew them together. A supple raconteur, Harris explores the intimacies of friendship with a sensitive eye. Yet it's likely that many readers will long for more structure and dramatic payoff than this complex yet amorphous and sometimes sentimental buddy tale provides. Author tour. (Aug.)