July 24, 2009

Bestselling author E. Lynn Harris died in Los Angeles, California, while on a business trip. Harris, who moved from his home state of Michigan to Arkansas when he was three years old, wrote novels about African-American men in gay and bisexual relationships. In his nine novels, which have sold more than three million copies, the gay characters are “on the down low,” or have not publicized their sexuality. Harris, a black man, endured years of abuse at the hands of his stepfather and for years denied his own homosexuality.