Scan barcode
xterminal's review
4.0
E. Lynn Harris, I Say a Little Prayer (Doubleday, 2006)
I wasn't quite understanding all the flap surrounding this book until very recently, when an African-American friend of mine who lives in California expressed outrage at the fact that Proposition 8 (the anti-gay-marriage proposition) was passed largely because, according to polls, seventy percent of the state's black voters turned out in support of it. Suddenly things got a lot clearer where I Say a Little Prayer is concerned, and I understand a lot more of the reason Harris felt compelled to write this novel. Like many others, I have to say I'm glad he did. This is quite a good little book, even if it does gets tangled up in its own message now and again.
The story focuses on Chauncey Greer, a bisexual black man who's decided that women are more trouble than they're worth, and so has decided to just date men. Problem is, he's got a bad relationship skeleton in the closet, and so these days his life, while successful on the outside, is littered with a string of unsatisfying relationships. Everything goes to hell when that old flame, Sweet D, arrives in town in order to recruit Chauncey to sing at a tent revival. Which is nothing too terrible—Chauncey and D were originally members of the same boy band—until Chauncey realizes that the minister holding the revival whips his members into a frenzy with his strong anti-gay agenda, and that D seems to be part and parcel of the anti-gay package. Clearly, there's a lot more going on under the hood than Chauncey had originally realized. In order to try and fight back against this hatred, Chauncey, in turn, tries to whip up his own congregation, but finds resistance there as well. What's a gay man—and a religious one, to boot—to do?
While Harris is pretty obviously on the outside of all this looking in, he refuses to give in to stereotypes most of the time, and draws his characters with sensitivity, be they gay, bi, or straight, and his plot is compelling enough that he could well just sit back and let the novel write itself, given the strong characterization. Unfortunately, he wants to dabble a time or two in speechifying, but that is little reason not to enjoy the rest of this novel. Homophobes will obviously have a problem with it, but recommended for everyone who actually has a shred of a brain. *** ½
I wasn't quite understanding all the flap surrounding this book until very recently, when an African-American friend of mine who lives in California expressed outrage at the fact that Proposition 8 (the anti-gay-marriage proposition) was passed largely because, according to polls, seventy percent of the state's black voters turned out in support of it. Suddenly things got a lot clearer where I Say a Little Prayer is concerned, and I understand a lot more of the reason Harris felt compelled to write this novel. Like many others, I have to say I'm glad he did. This is quite a good little book, even if it does gets tangled up in its own message now and again.
The story focuses on Chauncey Greer, a bisexual black man who's decided that women are more trouble than they're worth, and so has decided to just date men. Problem is, he's got a bad relationship skeleton in the closet, and so these days his life, while successful on the outside, is littered with a string of unsatisfying relationships. Everything goes to hell when that old flame, Sweet D, arrives in town in order to recruit Chauncey to sing at a tent revival. Which is nothing too terrible—Chauncey and D were originally members of the same boy band—until Chauncey realizes that the minister holding the revival whips his members into a frenzy with his strong anti-gay agenda, and that D seems to be part and parcel of the anti-gay package. Clearly, there's a lot more going on under the hood than Chauncey had originally realized. In order to try and fight back against this hatred, Chauncey, in turn, tries to whip up his own congregation, but finds resistance there as well. What's a gay man—and a religious one, to boot—to do?
While Harris is pretty obviously on the outside of all this looking in, he refuses to give in to stereotypes most of the time, and draws his characters with sensitivity, be they gay, bi, or straight, and his plot is compelling enough that he could well just sit back and let the novel write itself, given the strong characterization. Unfortunately, he wants to dabble a time or two in speechifying, but that is little reason not to enjoy the rest of this novel. Homophobes will obviously have a problem with it, but recommended for everyone who actually has a shred of a brain. *** ½
More...