E. Lynn Harris has mined the struggles of his life time
after time through the painful experiences he has faced, and then crafted it into
this brutally honest work titled, What
Becomes of the Broken Hearted. Writing allows us to turn our feelings into words, and
helps us gain power over our own thoughts. “This dream of writing was becoming
powerful and silent… It was one of the few times that I listened to myself
without worrying about what others would think” (Harris 229).
However, to tell his story to
the public, he needed two things. One is the courage to publish. The other is
the willingness to craft the experience into a readable form. Harris discovered
the need to develop his skills in order to earn readers, which he did by the time
he wrote his memoirs. His fiction was different
in tone, to some degree –– which was a mix of his real life and fictionalized
events and characters –– than opening up his painful life; therefore memoir
writers are no different.
“Look,
Daddy. Look at me,” I said with
excitement as I twirled around like my sisters had moments before. Suddenly Daddy’s bright smile turned into a
disgusted frown. What was wrong? Didn’t he like my new coat? Had Easter been cancelled? Come here.
Stop that damn twirling around,” Daddy yelled” (Harris 11) .
The appropriate reactions to stories of abuse extend well
beyond horror and rage. Compassion is one–for the victim, and by extension, for
all victims of violence. Curiosity is another–for what we can learn from one
person’s story sheds light on how abuse can be ferreted out and prevented. We need to celebrate,
acknowledge, and honor the writer with the courage, determination, luck, and
whatever else it took to dig deep and persevere to write an ugly truth well
enough that people will read it. The hyper-masculine
ideals forced upon young black boys combined with the homophobia of the black
church create a perfect storm of shame and secrecy that many, including Harris
face. Homophobia in the black community
— indeed, even among the leaders of the civil rights movement of the 1960s —
was one of the most virulent and stubborn of all.
“Look at you. You fuckin’
little sissy with this coat all buttoned up like a little girl. Don’t you know better? Men don’t button up their coats all the way…
I couldn’t stop crying as I saw one of the gold buttons roll under the metal
television stand in the corner of the room” (Harris 11-12) .
 |
| E. Lynn Harris, in his youth |
African-Americans are among the most
religiously devoted American ethnic groups. They are more than likely to construe
the Bible literally and believe in God with absolute certainty, above the views
of other people. Because of the theologically conservative belief of black
churches at large, it makes sense that many black Christians take the Apostle
Paul at his word when Paul portrays homosexuality as an act of wickedness and corruption
that leads to perversion –– in his letter to the Romans 1: 26-27
“For this
cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change
the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men,
leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another;
men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that
recompense of their error which was meet” (BibleGateway) .
Romans 1:26-28 has become our plumb line in determining
who can come into our churches and to whom we actively deny access. We
ought to invest reading, much prayer and personal study for this is an issue of
eternal life and death to a segment of the world population. If you are already
saying there is no such thing as a LGBT Christian, please recall times where
we, as a church and a society, believed many things that were not true about
faith and works, women and slavery. Eighteen million people in the US alone
identify as LGBT, and they deserve our concern and respect.
The Word
says women had exchanged the natural use of their body for an unnatural use.
Please look at the verse for yourself. Does it say women were having sex
with women? This is what I had always thought it did say. It could
mean that, but it simply says, women were doing something unnatural with
their bodies. Remember this was Paul writing and it is his view as a
Jewish convert as to what is unnatural or beyond the ordinary. It could
have been sex with other women, sex during menstruation, oral sex
or sex with an uncircumcised man –– any or all of those. All of these behaviors were
“unnatural” to a Jewish Christian.
Meanwhile many black Christians pride
themselves on a plain reading of Scripture, making it virtually impossible to
foster an inclusive embrace or acceptance of homosexuality. As long as
African-American Christians adhere to biblical mandates as authoritative
prescriptions from God, they won't be easily dissuaded from rejecting same-sex
lifestyles as viable alternatives to heterosexual norms.
“Stop
that sniffling and clean your face, you little sissy,” he said to me. “What are you going to wear church now... I
didn’t know what a sissy was and why Daddy despised them so. All I knew was that I was determined never to
be one” (Harris 12-13) .
It is also important to be aware that no two people
process abuse and shame the same way. Some are far more sensitive than others,
and are traumatized every time they revisit the images that haunt them. Some
can barely get through life simply by walling off the memories and keeping
their focus on the now. These people are no less, nor more, courageous than
people like you and me, who dig for understanding. Everybody processes their
stuff in the best way they can. We do what we feel we must.
Harris was born June 20, 1955 and was
initially named Everette
Lynn Jeter. Harris was born in Flint,
Michigan prior to the civil rights movement.
Harris moved to Little Rock, Arkansas, with
his mother at the age of 3. Upon his mother's marriage to Ben Harris, his
surname was changed to Harris.
“My daddy, Ben Otis Harris was a towering, slightly overweight
red-boned man with a talent for painting signs and drinking, which was when his
other talent showed, beating up people smaller than he was. His favorite punching bags were my mother and
me” (Harris 14).
Harris uses his writing as a kind of
scalpel to cut out the growth festering inside of him – his story – which was
making him sick –– alcoholism and depression. It was an instrument that he had
to wield with great care and skill for the excision of his story to be
successful, for the wound to heal. Without telling his story, he thought, he
would stay sick; and even might die.
 |
| E. Lynn Harris |
“I crawled into my bed and decided to give God a final chance to
perform one of the miracles I’d heard about in childhood Sunday school
classes. I talked silently to God
telling Him that I was… being overwhelmed by helplessness and the feeling of
how badly I wanted to die and be forgotten” (Harris 2-3).
Repressing our stories can harm us. In
fact Harris who at one point was repressing his desire to write, which
exacerbated his suicidal
tendencies and depression. Harris felt
that the only way out of depression lied in finding the story that hasn’t been
told.
“I have
learned that life brings you only lightening like bursts of brilliance, and
they are rarely lyrical. There is no
easy way to say it: I tried to kill
myself one humid summer evening… In my state of sadness, nothing I could say
could explain how I felt” (Harris 1).
Harris uses the issue of
domestic violence not only in this book but in others he wrote in his career,
until his death in 2009. Harris may have been among the first to write about
same sex relationships of “color” that dealt with the issue of domestic
violence, setting him apart from other gay authors of his time.
“Domestic
violence affects 25 percent to 75 percent of lesbian, gay and bisexual
individuals. However, a lack of representative data and under reporting of abuse
paints an incomplete picture of the true landscape, suggesting even higher
rates. An estimated one in four heterosexual women experience domestic abuse,
with rates significantly lower for heterosexual men” (Sciencedaily.com) .
Harris
observed that the impulse to
create usually comes from some early damage to the self, and this wound or loss
initiates a life’s work of healing. Writing can use language to repair psychic
wounds.
Domestic violence manifests itself in an estimated four
million intimate relationships’ each year in the United States alone; and
Harris’s family was one of them.
Everything is bigger to a child –– not only physically, but
perceptually and emotionally, as well. A dollar found becomes a discovered
treasure. A harsh word becomes a deafening declaration of war.
“Emotionally, I still felt as fragile as ice on a river in
late spring, but for the first time, I was feeling hopeful about summer… I
didn’t have to fight the battle of self doubt… alone” (Harris 224).
Memoirs can take me into the dark pockets of
the human condition. “I didn’t have the
courage to tell her that I felt being myself had never been good enough”
(Harris 71). Researchers have found that
a staggering percentage of children are abused. And despite the widely known
statistics the human story of their plight is hidden from view. Few of us know
what to say about this upsetting and confusing subject, and so the topic is
avoided in polite company.
A heap of dirty clothes in the corner becomes a nasty,
fanged monster after the lights are out. For Harris one of his earliest
monsters was his stepfather. “ I
remember how she would gently rub the hurt from my body when it was covered
with welts from Daddy’s switch or belt” (Harris 17). A paper cut is a knife in the stomach. Harris’s abuse was much more than physical it
was also deeply abusive. “Daddy’s abuse
sent me the chilling warning that the world wouldn’t take too kindly to a sissy
boy whom even his father couldn’t love” (Harris 18). And a hug from a parent in times of fear
becomes Perseus's shield, protecting them from Medusa's deadly power.
Everything is amplified in ways adults find hard to remember. So can you begin to imagine, just for a
moment, the terror, the pain, the agony and confusion experienced by a child
whose every waking moment is marked by fear and nothing but?
“I was now getting a daily beating for no apparent
reason. Sometimes Daddy would look at me
in disgust and say, “Go in there and get my belt, you little sissy,’ or ‘Go get
a switch so I can tear your ass up. Make
sure you get a strong one” (Harris 23).
Childhood is over too soon under the best of circumstances;
to strip a child of their trust, to despoil them of the belief that those who
love you will always protect and never harm you, to commit the obscenity of
taking a child and simply, totally ruining their world, to destroy the joy in
their hearts.
“I could
numb the pain and fear I felt every time I entered our house and knew that he
was there. Even when I’d forgotten the
whippings he’d give me for just looking at him the wrong way… I was awakened
from a deep sleep by my mother’s screams and crying” (Harris16).
More women are injured through domestic
violence than by rape, muggings, and car accidents combined. African American
Women suffer deadly violence from family members at rates decidedly higher than
for other racial groups in the United States.
“He was
beating her, and when I tried to call out her name, nothing would come from my
mouth. I thought he was killing her, the
screams were so loud. I felt I had to do
something, but every time I tried to call out her name or move, nothing
happened I was paralyzed” (Harris 16).
However, it is observed that research
concerning family violence among African Americans is inadequate (Pryor) .
Harris in text describes the pain of
his childhood and that of the abuse he received from his father:
“Daddy
filled my life with fear for as long as I could remember. Fear that I talked too much, read too much,
and couldn’t perform simple tasks like getting his water cold enough, or that I
would forget to wake him when he went to sleep in front of the black-and-white
television. After all, as he often
reminded me, I was a poor excuse for a son… most of the time I felt he hated
me” (Harris 14-15) .
Like his popular novels,
Harris's memoir is a page-turner that
feels more like a long, confessional
letter or an all-night
conversation. Its principle merits are as a record of
the modern
gay black man's experience. However,
his conversational style was sometimes disappointing because the
memoir
occasionally fails to fully explore various experiences. And
while it seems he
wrote some of the last pages earlier,
Harris chooses to keep some secrets to
himself. Unfortunately for
the reader, he only hints at the happiness he has
found in the last
decade and keeps those tales undercover.
Many writers shy away from stories that involve any harm
coming to a child. In some genres, portraying child abuse is seen as an
unbreakable taboo, and to deal with this subject is to risk your readership if
you can even get the work published. By
the time Harris came to write What
Becomes of the Broken Hearted it was his tenth book. I believe there's room for honest portraits
child abuse in great writing.
“This water isn’t cold,” he said. ‘Didn’t I tell your dumb ass that I wanted
cold water… ‘What did I say, you little sissy?’ he yelled.
‘Huh?’ I responded.
‘Huh . . . hell. Don’t you think I know the difference between
cold water and tap? The water isn’t
cold,’ he said as he dumped the remaining water on me… ‘You are going to do
what I say if it kills you. Your little ass thinks you so goddamn smart. Go get
my strap” (Harris 24-25).
Not to use a tale as a bully pulpit or soapbox decrying child
abuse, but to genuinely explore how abuse affects the human condition through
the eyes of a story's characters. “When
she (Harris’s mother) saw my backside, she said, ‘Oh my God… ‘Come here
Lynn. Let me put some (alcohol) on you”
(Harris 26). If you write about child
abuse, the most important thing is to keep your work from becoming material for
pedophiles. It's a hard thing to keep a graphic scene from becoming
inadvertently titillating -- and sometime a story genuinely needs a graphic
depiction. Writers
sometimes worry about writing about the past and it will force you to divulge
information you would rather keep quiet.
“When he did whip me, it was if magically
detached myself from my body. My secret
information provided me with an omnipotent shield that protected me. In early 1969… my mother divorced Ben” (Harris
29).
It’s as if you are afraid that by merely
writing the past, the secrets would fly out into the air. Sometimes dark memories are so compelling
they draw you in and frighten or upset you.
“He returned one afternoon and pulled a
butcher knife on her as she hung up clothes in our backyard. My mother’s screams had brought not only me,
but many neighbors, to her rescue as Ben ran away in fear of the police”
(Harris 29).
When you try to seal them back in their crypt,
they continue to haunt. The courageous memoirist actively faces these fears and
crafts them into stories. Under the guidance of our inner storyteller we gain
power over our own memories.
“I had heard, and Lord only knows where, that
if a child died before the age of twelve, he or she would go straight to
heaven. No questions asked… I didn’t
know much about heaven, I knew it had to be better than the terror I faced
daily at 520 East Twenty-first Street” (Harris 21).
The silence that protects victims also protects
perpetrators. Victims have important reasons
for hiding the things that happened to them. There is the stigma of shame,
often made worse because the victim is made to feel responsible. And there is
the risk of angering the perpetrator. Until the memoir age, many wounded people
have never felt empowered to share their stories. Now more people are telling
and more listening. In my optimistic vision, I see memoirs tearing down walls,
and I feel a surge of hope like the crowds who were swinging sledge hammers in
the final hours of the Berlin Wall.
Like his peers, Harris unburdened himself
of the pressure to create what critics might consider "high art" like
that of predecessors James Baldwin, Alice Walker and Toni Morrison, who had
paved the way for them in the industry. But his novels' themes were in no way
limited to love and sex. His works explored the sexism and ageism that young
black professionals face in corporate America and the havoc HIV/AIDS was
wreaking in black communities long before it made the mainstream networks'
evening news programs.
His honesty about battling
depression and "lying Lynn" are also
important aspects of his story.
As his novels forced women to face
facts about male sexuality and gave gay
black men their own serial,
his memoir will help raise the veil from the issue
of
depression.
E. Lynn opens the doors
into his world in his memoir, What Becomes of the Brokenhearted. To me, this is
more than just Harris telling us his story; he is also offering words of wisdom
and encouragement along the way. I've read this book multiple times and each
time I am moved by his story. The memoir will take you through a range of
emotions but in the end you can't help but smile.
Courageous, admirable, heartfelt, heart
warming, emotional. All of these adjectives I would use to describe the memoirs
of E. Lynn Harris. Mr. Harris has taken a great step in life, writing down his
life for the entire world to see and make comment on and that takes tremendous
courage. I can only hope for him, that this is a liberating experience and some
of the demons that have fought him have finally turned him loose. So many people walk around life with a
seemingly perfect outer shell, inside is totally in a shambles. Without an
outlet to express oneself, we can easily become brokenhearted and
disillusioned. Harris experienced this many times during his life starting with
an abusive step father, continuing with a short reunion with his father, his
seemingly inability to fit in at school, attempted suicide and general
unhappiness with his life. It seems that he spent over half of his life looking
for someone to love him and seeking ways in which to love himself.
Works Cited
BibleGateway. Romans
1: 26-32 King James Version. 19 November 2014 <http://www.biblegateway.com/passages/?search=
Romans +1%3A26-32&version=KJV>.
Harris, E. Lynn. What Becomes of the Broken Hearted: A
Memoir. Ed. Janet Hill. 4th Edition. New York City: Doubleday, 2003.
Pryor, M.Div., Reverand Arlington. Domestic Violence When
Love Becomes Hurtful. 19 November 2014
<www.blackwomenshealth.com/blog/domestic-violence-when-love-becomes-hurtful>.
Sciencedaily.com. Domestic Violence Likely More Frequent
for Same-sex Couples, Review Suggests. 19 September 2014. Northwestern
University. 19 November 2014
<http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/09/140919140856.htm>.
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