Blast From the Past
In 1974, when The Front Runner was first published by William Morrow, there was no AIDS health crisis, there was little national awareness of any gay civil rights movement, there was little cohesiveness in the gay and lesbian community, there was little gay or lesbian fiction.
Times have certainly changed since then, yet The Front Runner remains a must read and continues to hold its place in the Top Ten of any legitimate "Best of gay fiction" list. According to the book trade magazine ForeWord, it is still the #1 selling gay and lesbian title nationally.
The Front Runner is a "must read" not just for gay men, not just for lesbians, not just for parents and friends of gays and lesbians, but for all people.
I have to admit that there was a short period of time during which one might have had the passing thought that The Front Runner might have seemed a bit out-of-time, and while still compelling, bittersweet and moving, somehow a bit quaint.
Yet, if one picked up The Front Runner to read, or read again, they would soon banish that thought. The vivid characters could be people you know or meet today, the situations, could easily be occurring this very moment.
Indeed, more recent history however reminds us all too well how some things never truly change, or at least have not changed yet, and The Front Runner continues to be one of the most successful attempts to show a variety of experiences and lifestyles within the gay and lesbian community while at the same time portraying the various levels of homophobia which exist in society, and refusing to ignore or avoid a confrontation with the very real dangers homophobia creates, encourages and nurtures.
Set in the world of college athletics and amateur track and field, The Front Runner is the story of three young runners, all gay, who have been dismissed from their university, and its major track and field program, because they are gay.
One of the runners, Billy Sive, is young and fiercely proud and out, having been raised by a gay activist father. Billy's closets have nothing but clothes in them. He and his two friends, Vince Matti and Jacques LaFont, need a place to run, and a college to attend, and they hope to find it in an obscure New York university and its track program headed by the conservative ex-Marine, Harlan Brown.
And why is Brown teaching at this obscure school? He was previously fired from Penn State University because of accusations of being gay. He needs these three young men like he needs a hole in the head.
But the runners are good, and Billy has Olympic potential. How could he deny them?
Then somewhere along the way of fighting amateur sports bureaucracy and Olympics committees that don't want sissies in their sport, Harlan finds himself falling in love with Billy...
Warren, a prolific author, has written several other bestsellers, including two sequels to The Front Runner, titled Harlan's Race and Billy's Boy. Her editorials and articles have a large audience, with subjects ranging from gay and lesbian life to native American philosophy, quite often including biting indictments of the status quo. It would be hard to have missed her work as she has been published in The Advocate, Genre, Lesbian News, Harvard Gay and Lesbian Review, Philadelphia Gay News, Washington Blade, as well as Modern Maturity, Atlantic Monthly, the Los Angeles Times, Reader's Digest, San Francisco Chronicle, Persimmon Hill, and American West.
The Front Runner has over ten million copies in print worldwide, in nine different languages. It is arguably the most celebrated gay love story of all time.
If you have never read it, read it now. If you have read it before, it is time to read it again.
In Pride,
Deborah
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