"I knew the book would do well," said the bestselling novelist E. For its first printing, 13,000 copies were shipped it is now in its 12th printing and has shipped 151,000 copies. The books were still in distributors' warehouses when Oprah hosted King, but thanks to viewer demand for the book, publisher Broadway Books released it a few weeks early. "On the Down Low" became a sensation when King, who lived a double life for 20 years while publicly identifying as straight, appeared on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" in April for a show about black women and HIV/AIDS. stories have appeared in newspapers, magazines - even on an episode of "Law and Order." looks like this new thing - when what's new is nothing more than the trappings around it." And the media attention: in the past two years, D.L. "Men have always secretly been having sex with other men and not telling people about it," says NYU American studies and English professor Phillip Brian Harper, author of "Are We Not Men? Masculine Anxiety and the Problem of African-American Identity." "But now, a fairly elaborate culture has emerged and become relatively known, so the D.L. Kelly suggested in their hit songs that if you're going to cheat, it's best to keep it "on the down low" - a secret - men of color adopted the term to describe behavior that had been a part of the black community (and every other culture - hello, Jim McGreevey) for years, but is still considered taboo. Ten years ago, when hip-hop girl group TLC and R&B Casanova R. Thanks to his bestselling book, King has become the public face of a controversy surrounding sexuality and HIV/AIDS in the black community: black men who live "on the down low," or the D.L., leading seemingly straight lives but having sex with men. "Brothers are upset about my book - I was scared. "If I'd stood there and argued with him, other brothers would've come around," said King, 49, who claims to have received death threats because of his work, and now requires his hosts to provide security for his speaking engagements. bullshit!'"Ĭonfrontations like this aren't new to King, and he knew what to do: keep walking don't look nervous. "We're walking and taking in everything," King's manager, Marshall Douglas, told me over breakfast at King's Park Avenue hotel the next morning, "and this guy walks up and says to J.L., 'You're a homo!' And he stopped the people around him - 'That guy right there is a homo! He's the one who wrote the book! Yo, why are you doing this to us? My wife is asking me if I'm doing that D.L. The fair was a success - King's book sold well, and the panel went smoothly - until Saturday evening, when he attracted some unwanted attention. He'd been invited to sign copies of his controversial new book, "On the Down Low: A Journey into the Lives of 'Straight' Black Men who Sleep with Men," and to participate in a panel about fidelity in black relationships. King joined other prominent African-American writers in New York for the weekend-long Harlem Book Fair.
On July 24, Chicago-based author, businessman, speaker and HIV/AIDS activist J.L.