IF THIS WORLD WERE MINE
By E. Lynn Harris
Doubleday, 318 pages, $23.95
If your literary tastes call for something on the order of Terry McMillan’s “Waiting to Exhale” but with a few more male characters, then E. Lynn Harris’ latest book, “If This World Were Mine,” is waiting for you. And if you think another story about a group of middle-class African-American friends who are chasing unfulfilled dreams and have a propensity for choosing the wrong partners and a stick-by-your-friends-no-matter-what philosophy promises little in the way of originality, your instincts are right.
That is just what Harris delivers in his fourth novel, a soapy opera that wants to be a serious examination of the complexities and turning points in the lives of four Hampton University classmates (and one outsider) who, by the time we meet them, have Hyde Park and Gold Coast addresses. Harris brings together his usual ensemble, a close-knit group of buppies, sets them loose in that toddlin’ town, surrounds them with characters much like themselves, and then leaves them spending most of their time asking the tiresome question: Will I ever find true love? From then on, the story and its various and predictable subplots shuttle us from Chicago to New York to Evanston to the South Side, and in and out of hotels, high-rises and hospital rooms as we follow Riley, Dwight, Leland, Yolanda and Basil in their search for the ever-elusive answer.
Basil’s search is the most elusive of all. A confused and tormented bisexual, he, more than all the other characters combined, wades farthest into the waters of sexual danger (unsafe sex, multiple partners). A recurring character in Harris’ novels (“Invisible Life,” “Just As I Am,” “And This Too Shall Pass”), Basil (full name John Basil Henderson) obviously was created to give readers a glimpse into the minds of bisexual black men, certainly rare figures in American literature. Years ago James Baldwin wrote about such characters. His “Giovanni’s Room” (1956) and “Another Country” (1962) were raw and honest chronicles of the lives of bisexual and gay males. Baldwin was an inspired genius who understood the power of words and put them to use in wise and wonderful ways; Harris, with his ineloquent and formulaic prose, sadly shows little of that gift.
“If This World Were Mine” opens with a letter from Riley Denise Woodson inviting her former Hampton classmates to join her in a journal-writing group. Answering the call from Riley, now “a kept woman with kids,” are Yolanda, a media consultant who describes herself as “presently single, and, unlike most of my female friends, I haven’t been looking for a man”; Dwight, a computer engineer who lives in a “cluttered Hyde Park studio” and views all of life in racial terms; and Leland, a gay psychiatrist who is emotionally constrained by an inconsolable grief he feels for his dead lover. Although the four eagerly sign on to the group-journal idea, they all maintain personal journals that contain the honest thoughts they can never share with each other.
In trying to give authentic voices to his characters, Harris uses first-person narratives and the fictional journal entries to add background and texture. He never succeeds in fully and successfully exploiting the rich possibilities of this device, which could have made this book sing. If this were a musical piece, it would be karaoke. The homogeneous caricatures that Harris draws severely weaken his story. More than once I wished someone would demonstrate some idiosyncrasy, some truly outrageous flaw that would make him or her stand out from the pack. Five different characters. One temperament. Little tension. Take Leland, for example. He’s a psychiatrist who makes his living helping others face certain truths in their lives. He discovers a dark secret about Basil, an ex-football player whom Yolanda, his best friend, has been seeing, and when he tells her what he knows–only after she discovers the secret herself–what does he do? He decides to send her a terse note saying, “Please forgive me for hurting you. I did what I felt I must do. I love you, that’s all.” Yawn.
Basil, it turns out, is the most fully developed character in “If This World Were Mine,” but then Harris has had lots of practice with him. Basil’s double life and selfish choices cause pain and turmoil for himself and everybody he says he loves. You want to try to like him, but he is so arrogant and self-absorbed it’s impossible. Listen to him describe himself: “My name, John, is the only thing common about me. My body is still da bomb. . . . I could put that Calvin Klein underwear model in the unemployment line.” An injured pro football player who loves the limelight, he has an inner life that is as deep and dark as an underground lair. As circumstances spin out of his control, the light of truth sinks through and he is forced to confront his oldest and dirtiest secret. For a minute, Harris lets you think redemption will happen. Think again. I suspect Harris is not yet finished with Basil.
As for the women in “If This World Were Mine,” they seem to exist only as props for the men. Riley’s twins are off at college and her husband, Selwyn, is off anywhere that’s not at home with her. So Riley spends her time planning elegant meals for the journal-writing group and dreaming of becoming a singer and poet. The only problem is, according to her friends, she can’t sing and her poetry stinks (examples in the book confirm their opinions). Loneliness drives her to get involved in an e-mail relationship with “Lonelyboy,” who turns out to be–take a guess–her own husband. She ends up where she started, back in her man’s arms.
Yolanda, as her friends might say, has it going on. She is self-assured and businesslike, the longtime best friend to Leland and short-term lover to Basil. For someone so savvy, she falls fast for the faithless Basil, who introduces himself by walking up to her and sensually kissing her as she sits alone in a Manhattan restaurant. In an almost-New-York minute, she gets involved in a whirlwind romance with him, only to see it run out of steam when she catches him in a compromising situation with another man. This, along with Leland’s withholding what he knew about Basil, prompts her to write in her personal journal: “Men are dogs. Let me clarify that: All men are dogs. I don’t care whether they’re straight, gay, young, old, friends, or lovers. They’re all a bunch of insensitive, selfish, heartless, unevolved idiots. When will I learn to stop trusting them with my feelings?” Yeah, yeah, Yolanda.
For those who like books that are set in Chicago, “If This World Were Mine” comes off almost like a Frommer’s guide. There are games at Northwestern, singing engagements at the Park West and shopping at Marshall Field’s. If the characters in this story never come across as real, at least you know the locations are.
