E. Lynn Harris

Harris is best known for populating his literary world with middle-class African American characters, many of whom are promiscuous or gay. His latest novel, Just Too Good to Be True, goes against type. Its hero, Brady Bledsoe, is a college football star who's celibate and straight. Faced with unscrupulous sports agents and cleat-chasing floozies, Bledsoe takes the high road, in part due to the vigilance of his devoted mother Carymn. But a new woman on the scene threatens to change all that. As Bledsoe's love life heats up, Harris returns to another of his favorite themes: secrets. Carmyn has one, and so, it turns out, does her son. Should either come to light, Bledsoe's once promising future could end up in the tank. Harris is a star in the recent resurgence of urban fiction, a genre that plays on the realities and vernacular of contemporary African American life. A nine-time New York Times bestselling author, his If This World Were Mine won the James Baldwin Award for Literary Excellence.
Mon., Aug. 18, 7 p.m., 2008