Patricia Nell Warren (1936–2019)

Patricia Nell Warren died at 82. Her gay-male novels of the 1970s (eg this one, [The Beauty Queen], [The Fancy Dancer]) were eye-openers for young queer me. RIP, and thanks.

I've come to think of this as a very flawed book because its heroes don't get anything like their richly earned HEA. True to its times, death stalks them. But before that...transcendent love and not just slaked lust (though there's plenty o' lust-slakin' indeed). Revelatory for my 1976 self. I am sad it never got its show more movie...Paul Newman optioned it way back when and the bubble machine hit overdrive imagining him as Harlan...but I'm deeply glad it was around in its flawed glory when I was young and impressionable. Love! Ordinary, human love between two men, neither of whom wore marabou or make-up!

And then that ending. I think rising sea-levels started when gay guys hit the last three chapters of this book. It *still* hurts forty-three years later to think of the ending. My goodness, I'm even tearing up, I can not believe just remembering it affects me so profoundly!

Patricia Nell Warren, you did real good. show less

My gay card has been in jeopardy for decades being ONE who never read Patricia Nell Warren's novel "The Front Runner." I'm lucky a friend bought me a copy and straightened me out. Written in 1974, "Front Runner" was a stunningly successful, mainstream-published love story, first about romance between a collegiate long-distance runner and his coach, and second Billy the runner's campaign to break past social obstacles to an openly gay athlete competing in the Olympics. It is fascinating to show more read and discover all the ways the book maintains liminal space between sexual forbiddens of its era, and conservative attacks on sexual identity of the right now. Prohibitions on homosexuals in sports fifty years ago are explicated with nearly the same language and fearmongering used today to shut out transgender athletes. Contrarily, the book's mission to normalize courtship between a forty-year-old coach and his student feels unacceptable and cringey by today's enlightened #MeToo standards. Parts of "Front Runner" seem lost to the Tom Of Finland age–there's something called the gay boogie dance and planned dates to pornographic-movie theaters–but the setting also has hallmarks of a near-future fantasy, looking forward only two years to a time when an out and proud Billy will earn the status as inspiration and role model for athletes of all gender orientations. On one page we cackle at Front Runner's so-'70s-ness, on the next page we aspire to the progressive imagining of what 1976 could be like. Warren's writing and storytelling is melodramatic, her descriptions of liberal drug use and explicit gay sex seem off the mark, but forgivably. Partial spoiler, there is a dramatic and violent death at the end. For most of literary and media history queer characters had to finish with being punished for their depravity; "The Front Runner" was a pioneer in depicting homosexuals as sympathetic, while also maybe overrunning the finish line to the counter-trope of: this gay must die because he's too good for this cruel, intolerant world. Thinking of today's right-wing campaign to ban books not just with queer sexual content, but with any queer character as a role model for young people, one finishes the novel realizing both: oh,how much we've accomplished since '74, and how sad it is regressive competitors in our culture are still trying to beat us by running backwards. show less

Leggere la storia di Harlan e Billy è stato un susseguirsi di emozioni diverse. Perché questo libro non racconta soltanto una storia d'amore tra due personaggi diversissimi tra loro, eppure così uniti. Intrisa in questo libro esiste anche una denuncia a tutto ciò che le persone LGBTQ+ hanno passato e, in tanti modi, stanno ancora passando. Per certi versi può essere anche un libro attualissimo, per quanto la situazione sia certamente cambiata da quegli anni ad oggi. Attraverso l'analisi show more di ciò che i personaggi provano, l'introspezione presente nella maggior parte del libro, ci si può perfettamente mettere nei panni di chi questa storia la racconta tra queste pagine. 5 stelle meritatissime. show less

The Fancy Dancer is about a young, handsome priest named Tom, who meets bad boy Vidal in the confessional booth. The two of them become friends, and then lovers, but they are forced to hide it from the rest of their community. It's like Brokeback Mountain, but with cassocks instead of cowboy hats.

Like Brokeback Mountain (I'm talking the novella here, not the film), The Fancy Dancer is a quiet, subtle unfortunately short story. A lot of it is about Tom's struggle to reconcile his show more homosexuality with the teachings of the church, and what I like about this book is that it doesn't condemn the church as this terrible, oppressive institution of pure evil. Tom actually renews his faith at the end of the book, but don't let that lure you into thinking that this is a happy-ending kind of love story. It isn't. It ends the way life ends -- that is, without finality. Tom and Vidal are so mismatched that their relationship simply tapers out, but with a sweet, wistful taste in your mouth. show less