I first met him through a character named Jordan Greene.
I was around 18 or 19-years-old at the time, so I didn’t know how to feel once we connected. I honestly had never experienced anything like this before. His approach? Warm. His vocabulary? Rich, vibrant. His confidence? Evident. His name? Eric Jerome Dickey.
A decorated author and pioneer in the tapestry of urban fiction, the unexpected news of Dickey’s death sent shock waves through the Black bibliophile community recently when he passed away at age 59. An outpour of love permeated my social media timelines as fans, celebrities, and literary giants used words like “amazing,” “iconic,” and “exceptional” to describe his impressive 29 novels and go on to share their connection with any of his over 125 characters.
It was evident that Dickey’s writing had touched the hearts and lives of many, but it was something about the way he told the Black story that made him just that much more special.
Many would agree that if you read an EJD novel in the 90s, it was like you were a part of a “secret society.” A community of readers who lived in a different dimension of “adulthood,” and you couldn’t WAIT to discuss them with your “Biblio crew.” If you were like me, underage and curious, his books were the gateway to a whole new world of “grown folks” that I had never seen before. I remember setting my subscription to Black Expressions (Y‘all remember that?) on FIRE every month, ordering EJD, Terry McMillan, Omar Tyree, E. Lynn Harris, and Brenda Jackson, Sister Souljah, and a host of other goodies. It was like a Pandora’s Box had been opened and exposed my world to some of the most complex, unique, messy, grown, but deep Black folks I’d ever known.
Weirdly, this experience was dangerously lit but not traumatic. It was almost like I’d been given a blueprint on how to be a Black, successful, and liberated woman but didn’t know it yet.
Meeting characters like Jordan, Nia Bijou, Dante Brown, Valerie, Inda, Chiquita, Tyrel (and his twin sister Mye), and more set me on a path of self-discovery that I never even knew I needed. As an aspiring writer and young woman in the 90s who was in her exploration phase, Dickey’s book gave me a front-seat perspective of what life and temptation for a successful man could look like. He showed us how family dynamics, even generations passed, helped shape how we engaged and interacted with others. He traversed the terrain of “taboo” topics like sex, violence, and murder and even gave us a glimpse into how spicy (and dicey) marriage can be. And he did it so unapologetically that sometimes reading his words felt like a sin. It was like you were reading something “wrong” when in all actuality he was liberating us, and helping us to understand that Black people also deserved success, healthy families, healing, freedom, and good sex. PERIOD!
Much like his writing cohorts, Dickey wrote Black stories that made you feel seen, heard, and understood. He told the stories of “me and you, your mama, and your cousins, too.” When you read his books, you either saw yourself, someone you knew, or someone that you aspired to be. He taught us how to feel, love, forgive, restore, and survive.
Thank you, Mr. Dickey, for being a guiding light for us. Thank you for writing stories that were not only prolific but kindred, and for showing us that beautiful things do happen when imagination, creativity, and passion collide.
