User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
I'm such a huge fan of the late Mr E Lynn Harris. Following the news of his death I wrote a blog about how I came to love his books and about how he touched my life. Here's a copy of that blog:
I was very troubled to hear about the passing of Mr. Harris. To me he was more than just an author. He helped me see that being an out gay black male was possible. The way I first discovered his writing was kind of serendipitous. I was a very unhappy closeted college freshman at East Carolina University. I've always had a passion for reading and used books as a way to escape my life's reality and it's inner-turmoil. I would go to Barnes and Nobel quite often to sip coffee and find new books to read. I was aware that they had a "Gay and Lesbian interest" book section, but I was so deeply closeted that I couldn't even walk toward that aisle even though I wanted to very badly. During one of my days there I walked around a bit and found a couple of books that looked interesting. I went to purchase my coffee and found a comfortable chair to sit in while I went through my books to see which ones I wanted to buy. I sat my things on the coffee table in front of me and I noticed an interesting looking book lying there on the table that someone had left for the employees to re-shelve. I picked it up and read the title
"Invisible Life". That really peaked my interest because I felt like I was living an invisible life. I started to read and it drew me in instantly...
*TO READ THE REST OF THIS POST, PLEASE FOLLOW THE LINK BELOW:http://sociallyurban.com/e-lynn-harris-the-passing-of-a-brilliant-author/
Rating: really liked it
The passing of this lovely man will not only leave a big hole in my reading list each year but puts an end to his heartfelt and powerful exploration of these specific lives. Since I read his first four books back to back about a decade ago, I have looked forward to spending at least one weekend each summer with his characters who are in some ways so different from those that populate my caucasian agnostic Angeleno life and in other ways absolutely the same. The heroes of his books are so fundamentally good they've always brought out the best in me and there are wonderful friends in my life today because I first made friends with people like them in his books. He's helped me understand my African-American brothers and sisters, straight and gay, and he's helped me better understand myself.
Rating: really liked it
Dnf @ 169
Okay I’ve had enough, this writing is not good at all.
“Her erected breast” “her vanilla wafer colored skin”
It’s just not good, so bad. And the characters??? I hate everyone they’re so boring and insubstantial. The main character has the worst view on his own sexuality as a bi man and it makes me so uncomfortable as a bi woman to read some of the terrible shit he’s saying that goes completely uncontested by the narrative. All his relationships and friendships are so boring. Everything about this was just not good for me. Which is so incredibly disappointing because it’s a book by a black man about a black bisexual character and his life. I had hoped to love this but it’s so....icky.
Rating: really liked it
I was recommended this book and glad I picked it up. This book is all about struggling with ones sexuality and who we are compared to who we are expected to be. Really good read.
Rating: really liked it
Wow. I was not expecting the outcome for Candace. Nor did I see the main character telling truths that would cost him everything. This book had me on edge throughout. I loved how the author captivates the reader from the beginning but then revs up the intensity midway to where you don't want to put it down.
Rating: really liked it
Invisible Life is one of my all-time favorite books, but it's been years since I've visited Raymond Winston Tyler, Jr. After finishing, I feel like there is so much about this book to unpack.
Invisible Life was groundbreaking when it was published in 1991, which was a completely different era in terms of being gay and being out, and it shows in this book. Some of the sentiments and attitudes still stand, unfortunately. But this book remains firm in how I felt about Raymond, then and now, and his struggle to find his way. Ready to move on to the next book in this three-book series.
Rating: really liked it
I was completely engrossed in this book. I soaked it up and finished it in 72 hours. This novel truly captured REAL SELF discovery
Update 7/20/2020
3rd time's the charm.
Update 4/29/2021
4th time reading this one! It's such a well written and classic story to me.
Rating: really liked it
I read this book on hearing it's going to be adapted into a TV series. Written in memoir style, it's the life story of an American black gay man growing up in the homophobic South. It chronicles the discovery of his sexuality, his coming out and his embrace of gay lifestyle after moving to NYC. Along the way, his story is juxtaposed with that of another black man, his first crush, who struggled with being gay and opted to live an "invisible life".
This is a good read, preachy sometimes, with some outdated POVs (it was written in the early 90's), but it provides great insights into the world of black gay men in the HIV era. I'd love to follow the MC around in subsequent volumes of the series (I think there are 2 more books)
Rating: really liked it
Having learned of author Harris via his recent death, I was curious about his introductory groundbreaking novel that was one of the first to acknowledge gay and bisexual black men on the "down low" who passed as straight. The idea of the character Ray being simultaneously in love with two perfect people (male Quinn and female Nicole) is intriguing, but the writing was, I have to say, pretty awful. Ex: "Her skin tone was a yellowish brown-waffle color," "Her skin was paper-sack brown," "I could see my black Jockey shorts against my camel-colored skin," and, my favorite, "she moved [my hand:] toward her erected breasts." Wow. I wish I could say nicer things about this book, but I can only hope Harris' writing got better as his career became established.
Rating: really liked it
the realest one in the book gameThis book gave me everything I didn’t know I needed. Harris is a masterful story teller and he raised the bar on issues that were faced in a time period we as a community swept under the rug. This is a reread and a welcomed one!
Rating: really liked it
I haven't read an LGBTQ novel since I was an undergrad, and at the time, I only read about women, so reading about coming out from the perspective of an African American man was different from most of the things I've read in the past. Ray is a closeted bisexual black man living in what I believe to be the 1980s. He was born and raised (and went to college) in Alabama, but moved to New York for law school and stayed for work and the lifestyle. In
Invisible Life, he struggles with the decisions he has to make between the way he feels and the life he wants to live.
I've read a lot of positive reviews about this book, and I agree that it does have a lot to say. However, I don't think that having something significant to say is a good enough reason to write (or read) a book. The writing style was so unimaginative that the sentences all started to sound the same, and the more emotional scenes were flat and emotionless, which was kind of sad in itself, because they should have been poignant. Reading this book felt like listening to a man recite the history of his life in a monotone, discussing his greatest joys and lowest sorrows without any difference in inflection. I just couldn't get into the story.
I intend to read more similar books to find something I do enjoy. While I did not enjoy this book, I do still think I would recommend it to people who were interested in books about gay and bisexual African American men. Not everyone has my writing style preferences, and a lot of people have really loved this book.
Rating: really liked it
Where do i begin with this disappointing read?
I truly found this to be INSULTING to Black Women. Cowardly bisexual black men lying and cheating on women is no life for anyone. Although we live in a different time than when this was published, I am still disappointed in its embrace of racist and homophobic stereotypes.
Not only that but the writing was all over the place. There was never truly a central focus for the protagonist while the reader was subjected to frequent info-dumping.
Had this been the first Harris book I read, as it was published, it would have been my last. Luckily, I know of a few more titles way better than this utter garbage.
Rating: really liked it
ahhhhhhhh. I know I've said before that I don't know how to rate something, but I truly, genuinely have no idea what to rate this. I kind of hated it. a lot. but then I kinda loved it a little bit? but not really? I don't know.
to start with what I hated
which was most of it:
1. the writing. jesus christ. everyone's skin color had to be overly described, usually as food. "papersack brown skin" "oatmeal colored sin" "sandy colored skin" "charcoal black skin" "pecan brown skin" "cinnamon brown skin".... please I'm suffering. Also, the story was around 80% tell and 20% show, and for the first 25% I'd say it was exclusively "tell." it was just Raymond, the main character, updating you on what had happened for that week or that month and almost never letting you experience it directly (never mind the abrupt six year time jump between chapters 2 and 3).
2. the plot. the first half of the book is incredibly disjointed and meandering and you truly can't tell where the book is going. all Raymond was talking about was his girlfriend Sela and the guy he'd met and started sleeping with, Kelvin. this goes on for the first two chapters (which is not an insignificant portion of time; it was about an hour of an eight-hour audiobook).
in the middle of those two chapters I looked up the synopsis again, knowing it was something about a man not being able to choose between his girlfriend and his male lover, only to realize that the names in the synopsis weren't Sela or Kelvin, but Nicole and Quinn, who I'm pretty sure you don't meet until like chapter 5. it made the beginning feel simultaneously slow and fast - in chapter 1, Raymond sleeps with a man for the first time, pretty much the same day he meets him, after minimal discussion of the fact that he's never been interested in men before. then it goes on to tell you about him cheating on Sela for months, and right when you think something's happening, there's a six year time jump and oh yeah, Sela and Kelvin are out of the picture, Raymond has only gay friends besides the token hag friend, he lives in NYC instead of Alabama, and let's just start the story over again.
and it literally does: he meets a girl he falls in love with, Nicole, and promptly starts cheating on her with Quinn. and then gets mad when he discovers Quinn has a wife and kids (???). and he loves Nicole and kinda wants to marry her but he's still sleeping with Quinn, and oh life is so hard. oh and some other stuff is happening sometimes, someone dies, ambiguous not-quite-happy ending, the end.
3. the sex scenes. maybe it's because this was written in the 90s, I don't know, but Raymond exclusively referred to his dick as his "sex", which was weird. he also pretty much exclusively referred to sex as "love-making," often with the word "vigorous" in front of it. the times the sex was actually described in detail - which thankfully was not a ton - it was super methodical and clunky and just. weird.
the things I didn't hate, on the other hand, are not quite as specific. most of it is just a general appreciation for what this was, and what it represents, considering the time it was written: a novel about a black bisexual man coming to terms with his identity and how that impacts the ones he loves.
I don't think it is at all fair to categorize this as "bad rep" because you are using 2020 standards for something written almost 30 years ago, that was written frankly and unapologetically in a way I imagine not many gay novels were at the time. yes, Raymond and most of the characters have a misunderstanding of what bisexual really means, but when most of the gay men you know have girlfriends or wives, of course you're not going to understand it when someone
really is attracted to men and women. and even Raymond himself didn't understand, because he had no one else to look towards for guidance.
I've also gone back and forth on how I feel about the cheating. I mean, there is
constant cheating throughout this book. Raymond cheats on Sela with Kelvin; Sela (later) cheats on her fiancé with Ray; Ray cheats on Nicole with Quinn, who is cheating on his wife with Ray. and it's kind of implied that Kelvin cheated on his fiancé Candance with at least one man. and it's all frustrating as fuck, especially when essentially all of the characters act like it's harmless to cheat if you're not married. it definitely colored my view of Ray. but the more I read, the more I started looking at it from their perspective, and out of my 2020-biased lens. as Ray points out, many gay men were not monogamous in the 90s. some became so after the AIDS crisis first began, but most still had girlfriends and wives, appearances to keep up, and instead just chose to have safe sex on the side. living in a time where it's basically assumed that if you're gay or bi, your goal is to eventually be able to come out of the closet, find your true love and ride off into the sunset puking rainbows, et cetera, it's easy to judge these characters for acting like monogamy is pointless or unheard of. but if your goals and expectations are completely different, and if you're only able to be gay on the side or with select friends who are either also gay or very trustworthy, of course monogamy would be impossible. all this to say, while I never
liked the cheating in the story, it feels wrong to pass too much judgment.
which brings me to my next point: I like that this book just was what it was. it was honest, and it was unapologetic, and it made me think and feel things I was not expecting. every character in here is deeply flawed, but none of them are bad people. they're just fucking
people. they're real, and their personalities were distinctive and varied in ways I don't see enough in the kind of fiction I'm consuming. (to be fair I am not usually reading Real Literature That Has Something Important To Say bc I'm all about the gay romance, but like, still.) their actions were infuriating and understandable and relatable and real. I especially loved Ray's journey with his father in the last portion of the book, and the palpable struggle they had to meet in the middle of their differences.
lastly, the underlying current of Invisible Life was AIDS. until the very end, it was never necessarily at the forefront - just Ray mentioning that he'd been tested, that he was negative, that gay men were meticulous about wearing condoms, specifically, while straight women were content with any form of birth control - but it was always present, a reflection of the time in which it was published. in his author's note, Harris mentions that this was in part dedicated to the black women who were suffering disproportionately from AIDS. as it's laid out in Invisible Life, HIV could spread incredibly quickly to straight people, because they didn't see it as something that affected "their" community. but many straight women - like Sela, like Nicole, like Candance, like Quinn's wife - never knew and never would have known that their boyfriends or husbands were sleeping with men as well. I don't know what else to say about this part of the story other than to say that it is clearly authentic and well done, and unlike some other stories about HIV and the AIDS epidemic that I've heard of, this one is wholly centered on the impact of AIDS on black men and black women.
so. now that I've rambled on and on about my complex feelings for this book, I guess I have to rate it. maybe. two stars seems harsh, considering how
much I appreciated what this story had to say, but four stars seems too much, considering how much I genuinely fucking hated the writing. and three stars is just so.... ambivalent. it's a literal average rating, that I pop out when something is just ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and I know I'm probably never gonna think about it again. it doesn't feel fair to slap a forgettable three stars on this. can I leave it at no rating?? like I know a rating is not required but also. it always feels required. I always have Opinions on what I've read and those Opinions equate to an easy to conceptualize rating. but maybe some Opinions just aren't ratable.
Rating: really liked it
Nostalgic I decided to buddy read this with a group of fellow book lovers. What a pleasure it was to revisit this iconic book after so many years. I was reminded of how special Mr. E Lynn Harris was. He was brave. He was creative. He was the voice for so many beautiful, Black men. Harris and his talents are sorely missed. Thankfully, he left us this book and so many others. I’m so glad that I took the time to be reintroduced to Raymond and his supporting characters.
Rating: really liked it
Invisible Life follows the lives of several black men in the 1990s, most of whom are queer and closeted. Because of this, the story deals heavily with homophobia (external and internal), identity struggles, and AIDS. It also discusses the ways that the women in their lives are affected by their actions.
This book is pretty outdated on its ideas of sexuality (and particularly bisexuality) at times, and I couldn’t tell if the author was commenting on that or falling victim to it.
The main character, Raymond, is incredibly selfish. He drags people along with no concern for how it might affect them, so long as *he* is happy. He is very inconsistent, acting immaturely on whims and impulses. Again, I couldn’t tell if the author was condoning or reprimanding this behavior.
I think this book is very much like a time capsule, representative of how it felt to be a black queer man in the 1990s. However, I’m not sure how much cultural value it holds in 2018 because of its outdated portrayals of sexuality and masculinity.
That being said, I did find it both interesting and entertaining. Watching Raymond’s life unfold was something akin to a Shakespearean tragedy. There are two more books in this series, but as of now I have no interest in continuing. Maybe I’ll try one of Harris’ other books?
3 out of 5 stars
