The Front Runner

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 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 show more 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 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 show more 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 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.

This is a classic, a book to be respected rather than enjoyed. It's the story of a gay Olympic runner, from the point of view of his coach/lover. It reminds me a lot of "Uncle Tom's Cabin", and it had a similar social function. It thoroughly explores what it takes to live in a homophobic world, whether one is in or out of the closet. There's heartbreak, pathos and martyrdom.

Harlan is a university track coach who tries to deny his sexuality, giving in only on infrequent excursions to NYC for random tricks. Billy is a track star expelled from his previous school for standing up for two other gay students. This is their story... their romance... played out on the backdrop of Harlan training Billy for a shot at the Olympic track team.

It's stunning. It was written in 1973, so certain parts can seem dated, but I was simply blown away by it. Billy and Harlan's fight against bigotry and homophobia, esp. within the amateur sports associations, is so eloquently written that I found myself clutching the book in a white-knuckled grip and hunching forward, almost physically pulling for them. I've never before been show more made so forcefully aware of how far the gay rights movement has come... and how much farther it still has to go. And toward the end... I cried. A novel has never made me cry before.

(Reviewed March 2004) show less

A true milestone in GLBT literature. This is one of the books you will never forget no matter whether or how much you liked it. A page-turner like no other, it gives a thoughtful insight into the American gay (athletic) live in the 1970s AND a wonderful love story. What it may lack in literary style, it makes it up with a great plot and incredibly vivid characters. And yes, I cried.

This is a classic, MM romance written back when that was almost unheard of. The story still shines, the characters are wonderful, flawed and believable. The ending hurts. As we browse the candy store of modern MM romance (from the lightweight to the intense) this is one to come back to and savor.