"The Front Runner" By Patricia N. Warren

[Guy Fawkes]

One of my two all-time favorites "The Front Runner by Patricia N. Warren"

 

 

Synopsis

Harlan Brown is the athletic director at the fictitious Prescott College, a progressive, experiential, private liberal arts college in New York.[note 1] A closeted ex-marine, Harlan has left a prestigious coaching position at Pennsylvania State University following false accusations of sexual misconductfrom a male student. Fearing exposure, Harlan has buried himself at the obscure college, and given up his dream of coaching Olympic athletes.

 

As the novel opens in 1974, three star runners — Vince Matti, Jacques LaFont, and Billy Sive — have been expelled from the elite track program at the University of Oregon because they are gay, and wish to transfer to Prescott to train with Brown. Though wary after his experience at Penn State, Harlan agrees to train the athletes, but quickly finds himself falling in love with Billy. Though they manage to suppress their attraction for a few anguished months, the two soon become lovers. When the runners graduate and take teaching positions at Prescott, Billy and Harlan move in together, and later wed in a commitment ceremony.

 

Throughout the novel, Harlan's past is revealed in the form of flashbacks. Though attracted only to men all of his life, Harlan marries a girl he impregnated while in college, living a wholly straight life with only occasional furtive, traumatic excursions into the gay underground of pre-StonewallNew York City. After the incident at Penn State, his marriage ends and he is unable to find employment as a coach, and ultimately begins work as a high-priced hustler in Greenwich Village. When Joe Prescott, the founder and president of Prescott College, offers Harlan a position as the college's athletic director, he enthusiastically accepts. Returning to the closet, Harlan devotes himself entirely to coaching.

 

Harlan's coming out, and Harlan and Billy's coming out as a couple, proves difficult in the intensely homophobic world of amateur sports. Overcoming practically insurmountable opposition and hostility, Billy is able to qualify to race in the 1976 Olympics in Montreal. He wins the gold medal in the 10,000 meter race, and is within meters of winning the 5000 meter race, when he is shot and killed by an anti-gay radical.

 

Though devastated by Billy's death, Harlan reflects that he spent his entire life wishing that he could one day let himself love someone openly, and was able to find happiness, however briefly, with Billy. Using samples he and Billy had stored in a sperm bank, Billy's close lesbian friend Betsy Heden bears Billy's child, whom she and Harlan raise together.

 

In an epilogue set in 1978, Harlan has returned to compete in amateur sports as an athlete, competing in and winning the Amateur Athletic Union masters championship at Madison Square Garden.

[+ LS299B]

Hello Guy,

 

Thanks for posting this and kindling some fond literary memories!

 

The Front Runner was the very first gay themed novel I read, followed by Patricia Nell Warrens 2nd book The Fancy Dancer. In this wonderfully written novel, young recently ordained Father Tom is assigned to rural sleepy parish. He meets Vidal Stump, (a self-confident, half Cheyenne, cocky ex-con,) who seduces Fr. Tom and thus begins a wonderfully told adventure that explores the tension between passion, vowed commitments, and love. I think Patricia Nell Warren was the first to portray a gay priest as a main character in a positive light; having an appropriate, albeit complicated adult sexual relationship.

 

And then there's The Catch Trap by Marion Zimmer Bradley!

Except from Goodreads: "Tommy Zane hates lions, a major obstacle in a family of lion tamers. But Tommy's dreams, and talent, fly higher, up in the rigging with the trapeze. When rising star Mario Santelli offers him flying lessons, it looks like the start of wonderful new life, and to Tommy's surprise, his relationship with Mario deepens even as his skill soars in the rigging. But life in the 1940s forces them to keep their love a secret, and the stress pushes both Tommy and Mario to a precipice. And as Mario flies higher and higher, Tommy begins to wonder if it will always be his role to catch Mario as he falls. A tremendously moving tale, a rich family saga, a wise and compassionate portrait of a special love in a cruel world."

 

I still have my original copies of both of these books; and am now inspired to do some re-reads!