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If This World Were Mine
E. Lynn Harris
Reviewed by Steven G. Fullwood
If This World Were Mine opens with snippets of the lives of its four main
characters, Riley, Dwight, Yolanda and Leland, from their journal entries. All are Hampton
graduates and all live in Chicago. The four meet up at a reunion and decide to keep a
collective journal called, “If This World Were Mine,” which holds the wishes of
each contributor. The four share entries from their private journals at a gathering that
ultimately brings them closer.
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If This World is not a sequel to Harris'
first two books or a continuation of And This Too Shall
Pass, but it does feature at least one character from the previous three - Basil, the
“startling gray-eyed” football player whose one-note characterization is given a
little more explanation. He dates Yolanda, a successful and beautiful media consultant.
Riley’s married, has two kids and is miserable because she’d like to be a great
singer and poet. Leland is gay and lonely and Dwight is black and mad.
As usual, the most clearly drawn character is Leland and I suspect this is due to Harris
being gay himself. The author spends time telling the young psychiatrist’s story,
whose lover died of AIDS. Spoiled Riley is simply annoying and uninteresting. Yolanda is a
little more interesting, but that’s due primarily to her association with Basil.
Dwight, with all his rhetoric, is fun, but his issues are resolved far too quickly for
readers to swallow.
Let me make an important observation about contemporary novels in general and Harris’
books in particular. The problem with contemporary novels is just that they are
contemporary. So by the time you finish one, you might be a tad confused, wondering if you
just read a book or watched television. The author gives such good soap opera that you can
almost see the character’s face frozen in dramatic tension.
Per usual, there’s enough drama to satisfy Harris’ legions of fans. Of all his
books, If This World is the most ambitious. Sure, it contains everything the man has ever
written about since 1992 (betrayal, secrets, resentments, taboos, sex, sexuality, AIDS
service announcements and love), he simply brings the theme of friendship to the fore.
Does he succeed? Does it matter? Did it ever matter? Yes, no and no. It ain’t deep
and it ain’t supposed to be. M
April 2001 |
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