(wapo) E. Lynn Harris, 54, a best-selling novelist who opened a door on a hidden side of African American life, writing about outwardly heterosexual men leading secret gay lives, died July 23 after collapsing at a Beverly Hills hotel during a book tour. The cause of death was not immediately determined, and an autopsy is expected to be performed next week. His taboo-breaking books about black gay life "on the down-low" made Mr. Harris a star literary figure after an inauspicious beginning to his career. In 1991, he had used the last of his savings to self-publish his first book, "Invisible Life," about a married lawyer's double life. He drove all over Atlanta, selling his novel from the trunk of his car to beauty parlors, bookstores and reading groups. Essence magazine named "Invisible Life" one of the 10 best books of the year, and it drew comparisons with Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man" and James Baldwin's "Another Country." Mr. Harris sold 10,000 copies on his own before the book was picked up by a New York publisher in 1994.

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