Johnson, R. M. 1968–

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R. M. Johnson 1968–

Writer

R. M. Johnson is the author of three popular novels, two of which follow the travails of an African-American family forever sundered. Both The Harris Men and its sequel, The Harris Family, center around the enduring legacy left behind when a father abandons his three young sons to find his own fortune in the world. Johnson’s saga earned solid praise from reviewers. “In unremarkable yet unfaltering prose, Johnson looks at the microcosm of one African-American family and in so doing bears sympathetic witness to [a] widespread American phenomenon,” noted a Publishers Weekly contributor in a review of the first novel.

Johnson was born in 1968 and raised in Chicago, graduating from Morgan Park High School. He enlisted in the U.S. Army soon afterward, and spent five years in the service. Upon his release, he began taking film courses at Chicago’s Columbia College, but a fiction writing class caused him to change direction. Realizing that in order to write he needed to find a steady job to support himself, he moved to Washington, D.C. to attend Howard University, from which he earned certification as a radiation therapist in 1994. From there, he relocated again, earning a science degree from Northeast Louisiana University in 1995. For a time, Johnson worked as a radiation therapist at a hospital in suburban Chicago, but decided to pursue writing full-time and moved into his mother’s basement to write his first book.

Found Influential Mentor

Johnson was helped early on in his career by another successful African-American writer, E. Lynn Harris. When The Harris Men was finished in 1996, Harris helped the younger writer find a publisher, and even invited him along on his own promotional tours. The manuscript was sold in 1997, and published by Simon & Schuster in 1999. The Harris Men recounts the story of Julius Harris and his three sons. Harris had abandoned his family when they were young, some twenty years before, and moved to California. A financial success in his later years, Harris learns that he is terminally ill. After hearing the diagnosis of cancer, Harris takes his beloved car, a Mercedes, out for a drive to the ocean. “What a gift,” Johnson’s novel reads. “He had bought the car in celebration of leaving his old life, venturing out in the cruel world where no one knew him, and making a new life…. The car had meant so much to him then. It helped mask the pain he was feeling for abandoning his family, helped him forget that he was still a married man with three boys that were probably missing him as he drove through the streets in the small two-seater, declaring how single and carefree he was.”

As The Harris Men progresses, the patriarch attempts to reconcile with his now-grown sons, but realizes that his absence has left a bitter legacy. The eldest, Austin, has become a successful attorney, but is weary of the responsibilities that his own family demands of him, and contemplates abandoning them just as his father had once done. Marcus, the middle son, is an artist, and also has commitment problems in his relationships. The youngest, Caleb, is a natural rebel and struggles to find his place in the world. One bad decision lands him

At a Glance…

Born on April 1, 1968. Education: Attended Columbia College; Howard University, radiation therapist certificate, 1994; Northeast Louisiana University, B.S., 1995. Military Service: U.S Army, 1986-91.

Career: Little Company of Mary Hospital, Evergreen Park, IL, radiation therapist, c. 1995; author, 1996-

Address: Home —Washington, DC. Office —c/o Simon & Schuster, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020-1506.

in prison. “Johnson is an author to watch,” noted Library Journal’s Shirley Gibson Coleman, and she praised the first novelist for “writing [that] is clear and straightforward.”

A Man Burdened by Life

Johnson’s second novel, Father Found, was published in 2000. It centers on Zale Rowen, who was abandoned by his father as a child and endured an abusive childhood in both foster care and at the hands of his own mother. Rowen is rescued by a well-meaning cop at a formative age, and as an adult launches a nonprofit Chicago organization he calls Father Found. Again, Johnson writes of the inner turmoil his protagonist faces on a daily basis. “Zale avoided most of the paper, not wanting to read about all the violence, the stores that got robbed, the baby that got thrown out of a window, or the kid that was found in the alley, a long, bloody smile carved in his neck,” the novel reads. “He especially didn’t want to hear about that, because every time it happened, he felt responsible. Even if only a little bit, he still felt as though he were to blame. If he had only done more, he would tell himself, or done just that one thing that would’ve made a difference, could’ve gotten that child off the street, like maybe finding the child’s father faster, and convincing him that his kid would be next on the butcher’s list. But it seemed he was always too late.”

With the help of Frank Rames, the cop who had come to serve as a father figure, Rowen zealously uses his organization to track down missing fathers and reunite them with their offspring. Unbeknownst to Rowen, however, Rames is also inflicting savage beatings on the men whom he finds. Rowen is so single-minded in his pursuit of justice that he fails to notice his friend’s problems, and neglects his own personal life as well. Much to his surprise, he learns that he, too, is the father of a child he does not know.

Another Harris Story

Johnson followed up on the success of his debut with a sequel, The Harris Family. Julius Harris learns that his original diagnosis was in error, and the sudden gift of life compels him to try, once again, to reunite with his estranged sons. Austin’s marriage is ending, while Marcus is reconciling with his own wife. Caleb, meanwhile, has just walked out of prison after five years, and hopes to see his girlfriend and their son. Only Julius knows that they are now living with a drug dealer. “Johnson juggles his multiple plot lines deftly, and his lean, no-frills style keeps the action moving so quickly that we almost forget we know what’s going to happen next,” asserted Washington Post reviewer Dave DeChristopher. A Black Issues Book Review critique from Ahmad Wright described the novel as “a tightly knitted story of men, family and the distance they must bridge to keep them together.”

Johnson lives in Washington, D.C., and his fourth novel, Dating Games was scheduled for a fall of 2002 release. He is also the author of an essay, “Fear of a Blue Uniform,” which appeared in Not Guilty: Twelve Black Men on Law, Justice, and Life. In it, Johnson calls for all-black policing in African-American neighborhoods. “I often see officers cruising through black neighborhoods, their elbows hanging out their open windows, scoffing at black people, staring at them as if to let them know that they could cause them worlds of trouble if they chose to,” Johnson writes. “That kind of kind of intimidation would become a thing of the past.”

Selected writings

The Harris Men, Simon & Schuster, 1999.

Father Found, Simon & Schuster, 2000.

The Harris Family, Simon & Schuster, 2001.

Dating Games, Simon & Schuster, 2002.

Sources

Books

Johnson, R. M., The Harris Men, Simon & Schuster, 1999.

Johnson, R. M., Father Found, Simon & Schuster, 2000.

Johnson, R. M., “Fear of a Blue Uniform,” in Not Guilty: Twelve Black Men on Law, Justice, and Life, edited by Jabari Asim, Amistad/HarperCollins, 2001.