Book Review: Abide With Me: A Novel
by E. Lynn Harris
Publication Date: May 02, 2000
List Price: $13.95
Format: Paperback, 349 pages
Classification: Fiction
ISBN13: 9780385486583
Imprint: Anchor
Publisher: Penguin Random House
Parent Company: Bertelsmann
Read a Description of Abide With Me: A Novel
Book Reviewed by Paige Turner
Warning: The following comments reveal a conflicted and divided point of
view, a la the characters who populate the novels of E. Lynn Harris. Readers are
advised to take this review with a grain of salt, (or a glass of champagne).
E. Lynn Harris is really scraping the bottom of the literary barrel when he has
to mine old Bette Davis movies for inspiration! Abide With Me, Harris latest
novel, borrows liberally from the movie "All About Eve" in relating back
stabbing rivalries among theatre actresses. He even clues us in by naming the
female villain after Eve Harrington. (What’s next? Perhaps Harris will portray
the characters of Raymond and Basil in a remake of "Whatever Happened to Baby
Jane?") This borrowing across cultures, genres and five decades is a red flag
that Harris’ creative juices are running on empty.
Abide With Me features the continuing saga of Raymond Tyler, (introduced in the
books, Invisible Life and Just As I Am), an upright, upwardly mobile African
American lawyer who has only recently come to feel comfortable with his
homosexuality. Raymond is presented with a wonderful professional opportunity
that raises a host of conflicts. A parallel story involves Raymond’s friend, the
earnest and beleaguered Nicole Springer, in her quest to revive her career as an
actress.
Harris is an author whose luck in coming up with a winning formula continues to
outstrip his writing skills. In Abide With Me Harris sticks to his usual
"paint-by-the-numbers" approach that includes: characters that gay readers can
identify with; plot twists that straight readers can identify with; affluent
African Americans who don designer name clothes and frolic in and
champagne-soaked, sumptuous settings; steamy gay and hetero sex; college and pro
sports; name dropping from the world of entertainment; and generous dollops of
religion. Usually one or two "for real/down home" folks (most likely somebody’s
Mama or Grandmama), are thrown in as a touchstone for the other glamorous and
conflicted characters to check in with their (select all that apply):
fabulousness/realness/spirituality/blackness/sexual identity.
In seeking to satisfy his readers, Harris sometimes "hits on it". But in Abide
With Me he mostly misses the mark, forcing readers to cherry pick the worthwhile
features from the fluff. Some of the worthwhile elements include:
- Conversations between Abide With Me’s "villain", Basil Henderson and his psychiatrist are well crafted and ring true. Interestingly Basil, with his pain and his denial, is the character that is the most compelling, vivid, and genuine, and provides a welcome contrast to the saintly Raymond.
- An incidental character, a woman in a coffee shop, provides one of the most hilarious, on-the-money distillations of every pretentious, "bougie", African American encountered in the past three decades.
- A dinner party in Seattle with a boorish gay guest was an absolute howl.
- Harris provides the characters with trendy, intriguing names: Kirby, Delaney, Yancey, et al.— a staple feature of his books.
Despite the few choice portions of his book, it can not be overlooked that
Harris is out- and-out ham handed in forcing plot elements to fit. One example
is the aging of Nicole. In the previous books she was tender and luscious, but
in Abide With Me she is aging and past her prime, (yet her male peer characters
do not suffer the same fate. Go figure). This is a clunky plot device to advance
the Yancey/All About Eve plot line. Also, Yancey and her mother are cartoonishly
designed and mean spirited. Do we really even care about them or want to read
about them?
Another example of Harris’ heavy touch is seen in the way that the final pages
of Abide With Me were tacked on to provide a hokey ending, and not as a natural
resolution or out growth of the plot’s progression. In addition it should also
be mentioned that Harris’ use of religious and hymn phrases for his book titles
(a coy ploy to elevate his work in an aura of religious respectability), is
irritating and wearing real thin.
Abide With Me is fun to read on a soap opera level, and functions as a kind of
mental popcorn. But has Harris grown as a writer over the last five years and
with five commercially successful books? His primary motivation as a writer
seems to provide a sanitized, yet titillating look at gay lives and gay sex.
Readers are urged to demand better quality writing, and to demand growth from
the authors they support.
A contemporary portrayal of the anguish and conflict of being black and gay in
America has yet to be written. It will make a welcome contribution, but Abide
With Me (and the others in this series) ain’t it.