(Mybrotha.COM) - In 1966, over 80 percent of African American children were being raised in two-parent households; in 2006, that number had plummeted to 31 percent.

Or, get this: 70 percent of Black professional women are single. Smart, successful women with no suitors?! What's going on?

Hill Harper explains it best: "Simply put, black women and black men are not communicating. And perhaps the saddest part of our lack of communication is that in many ways we are not even friends anymore."

NAACP award-winning, New York Times bestselling Hill Harper sparks an honest dialogue about the crisis in African American relationships. The Conversation: How Black Men and Women Can Build Trusting Relationships (Gotham Books; On Sale: 9/8/09; $22.50) is the first ever nonfiction book selected as an Essence Book Club pick. It tackles a variety of issues plaguing the African American community. From discussing the roots of the breakdown of the family to what men can do to break the cycle of being a "player," Hill offers readers a blueprint for moving forward with simple communication that eliminates negative perceptions and breeds resourceful recovery. Most importantly, this book provides a platform on which black men and women can begin to truly love one another again.

During a question and answer session with Harper, he offered several words of advice about love and relationships:

Q: Do you feel that African American men and women need to be friends first?

Hill Harper: Yes. Attraction first, followed by Friendship, then Intimacy. AFI. There are a lot of different issues that are specific to our community. But there are also many that are general male/female issues. I feel, to have healthy relationships, the train should go attraction, friendship, intimacy. But what happens, is many men and women -- not just Black men and Black women - go from attraction to intimacy and then try to deal with the friendship later on.

Q: How do women and men's rules about dating in relationships get in their way and what can they do to overcome these rules?

Hill Harper: I talk in the book about looking in the mirror. We all had our individual experiences, and what someone may really want is different than what someone else may really want.

Often times I found in researching the book that the first few minutes of an interview I would hear people say what they think society would want them to say and then I found that if I interviewed them a second or third time, once there was a level of familiarity, they would start saying, "Well, actually what I said earlier isn't really true. I don't really want that. What I really want is this..." It's really about looking at yourself in the mirror and being honest about what you want. This is the fundamental truth, not just about relationships. It's making sure you're not living someone else's life.

Too many of us end up living someone else's life rather than our own and I think that is very sad. It takes courage to truly live your own life, but it's wonderful when you do.

I always say: "I would rather spend one day living my life than a lifetime of living someone else's."

The Conversation (Gotham Books; on sale September 8, 2009; $22.50): a long-overdue discussion about a seldom-voiced threat to the African-American family. Click here http://www.theconversationonline.com/ and let's get THE CONVERSATION started.

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