Arts & Entertainment
Queer Classics
Queer Classics
Patricia Nell Warren's The Front Runner
by Ernie McLeod
Some novels are designated classics purely on their literary merits. Others achieve that status more because they are milestones of one kind or another; what they come to represent is more important than the actual words on the page. Patricia Nell Warren’s “The Front Runner” falls into the latter category.
The Front Runner, published in 1974, was the first overtly gay novel mass-marketed in chain stores. It reached the “New York Times” bestseller list, has sold some ten million copies in seven languages, has even been labeled the “most popular gay novel of all time.” The fact that it’s a love story between two men, but was penned by a (lesbian) woman, has only added to its reputation. When it was left off the Publishing Triangle’s”100 Best Gay & Lesbian Novels” a few years ago, many gay readers loudly cried foul. Visitors to the Publishing Triangle’s website ranked it #1.
The plot of The Front Runner is simple and absorbing. Harlan, a thirty-nine-year-old ex-Marine, is a track coach at the small but progressive Prescott College. He’s leading a life of exile there after being forced to resign from Penn State when rumors circulated that he was gay. At Prescott, Harlan meets three runners who have themselves been ousted from the University of Oregon for being gay. One of the runners is twenty-two-year-old Billy Sive, an uncompromisingly out and proud long distance runner with Olympic potential. Though initially Harlan and Billy resist their attraction to one another, eventually they become lovers. News of their cross-generational relationship spreads quickly across campus, then throughout the homophobic sports world. Harlan and Billy’s love is increasingly tested as Billy’s Olympic potential becomes reality, and they must go up against all those who want to destroy both their relationship and Billy’s chances of winning a gold medal.
Warren is a no-nonsense writer, a brisk plotter unafraid to tackle big issues. I was initially stunned by the speed with which she plowed through Harlan’s and Billy’s pre-meeting histories, dispensing in a few pages with circumstances that might occupy another author for an entire book. Harlan’s adolescent same-sex longings, military life, marriage, children, divorce, and brief stint as a high-priced hustler—not to mention Stonewall participant!—zip by in a flash, as does Billy’s rather astonishing San Francisco childhood, complete with gay-activist father and “TV” surrogate mother.
Clearly, Warren paints with broad rather than delicate brushstrokes. This style allows her to cut quickly to the romance at the novel’s core, yet also to explore a wide range of gay issues—coming out, discrimination in athletics, sodomy laws, gay marriage and parenting—some of which were quite ahead of their time.
The Front Runner was also ahead of its time because its “regular guy” characters were, by and large, not tortured by their homosexuality. Billy, in particular, is a character for whom being gay is as natural and normal as breathing. At last here was a novel whose characters, if not for societal prejudice, might be free to live happily ever after. Warren was a pioneer in shining the focus away from self-hatred and towards societal hatred—Its irrationality, the damage it inflicts on gay lives. She charged the mainstream with wrongdoing, yet in a way that both reached the mainstream and illuminated a path for redemption. For gay readers, The Front Runner was a tragedy, but a positive one; heroes don’t come much more ideal than Billy and Harlan. Add a few semi-spicy sex scenes to the mix, and it’s easy to understand the novel’s enduring popularity.
Warren grew up on a Montana ranch, was married to a Ukrainian poet (and published books of poetry in Ukrainian) before coming out in 1973 and was a senior editor at the decidedly non-gay “Reader’s Digest.” Now in her sixties, she’s written a number of novels since The Front Runner, including the sequels Harlan’s Race and Billy’s Boy. Her latest, The Wild Man (released by her own Wildcat Press), is set in the Spanish bullfighting world. Warren is also a passionate youth advocate and an outspoken activist, writing frequently about such issues as ageism and censorship. Her own work has been the target of censorship from conservatives and from some within the gay community who feel she’s focused too heavily on men, a charge she both disputes—many of her less-famous novels feature female characters—and rejects as unnecessarily separatist.
Frankly, as a novel, I found The Front Runner to be an awkwardly written blend of romance and politics, with both receiving simplistic, heavy-handed treatment. I didn’t buy it; perhaps I would have twenty-five years ago. While it may not be a great novel, or even a very good one, it’s indisputably an important one to the many who insist it changed their lives.
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