September, 1975
Front Runner
By LEON STEVENS The Front Runner is an interesting and popular novel about a male gay relationship written by female author, Patricia Warren. The novel is due to be made into a film starring Paul Newman which is sure to stir extensive controversey.
This novel is heavily pro-gay and is intended to be a powerful affirmation of gay liberation and self-respect. The content of Warren's bold commentary was inspired by a conversation
which the author had with a gay athlete at a party. Warren was, herself, a member of a women's track team. It is clear that she combined these experiences with some research in gay lib literature to assemble a provocative and commanding story. However well-intended, The Front Runner suffers from lack of first hand information, plus much speculation on the part of the novelist which tends to stray too far afield.
The action centers around a love affair between a gay track star who eventually joins the U.S. Olympic track team, and his older gay coach.
The struggle of both men to achieve ambitious goals while publicizing both their gayness and their relationship. They are always on the brink of being overwhelmed by hostile forces, and this situation creates the standing tension which enwraps the reader.
Both straight and gay reading publics are likely to be moved by the tender pathos which pervades the action. However there are several inaccuracies and distortions of this book which might probably embarass a gay male reader. For example, although the younger protagonist is the son of a gay activist lawyer, has been raised in a predominantly gay environment, and even conducts a college seminar on gay awareness. he is plagued by many problems which most straights imagine gays to have. The front runner, named Billy, is cared for by a transvestite whom his father had married because Warren apparently feels that any true hero requires at least a fair re-production of a heterosexual mother to become a healthy adult.
Both protagonists yearn for a typical middle cloon
token homage to drags and women, so that toward the end the lesbian is left in the kitchen cooking, washing dishes, and tending the baby, haus-frau fashion while the men sit in the parlor discussing philosophy. Equally defying belief is episode in which the rather conservative and reserved coach retires to become an overpaid, sought-after hustler in New York.
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Through other portrayals in book Warren redeems herself. Although Warren fails in depicting certain gay circumstances convincingly, she is very successful at revealing the subtleties of gay interactions. While her situations are less than real, her characters are immediate and human.
Gay men can readily identify with the efforts of the protagonists to conceal their genuine feelings from each other while courting. Also, they can appreciate how the heroes sublimate their rather complex desires and emotions.
Warren is sensitive to pressures applied by straight society against gays and gives abundant expression to the frustration of gays who try to achieve ambitious goals within a heterosexual matrix. The sufferings of gays who find it hard to reconcile themselves with their homosexuality is also empathetically dealt with. There is no dearth of profundity in this novel. Warren evokes considerable personal reflection in a gay reader with such quotables as "Lovers are a dime a dozen; but a good friend is worth a thousand lovers."
The writer provides various other insights, including a progressive assessment of the United States Olympic Committee, The International Olympic Committees, and especially The American Athletic Union.
Warren is a strong proponent of human rights in sports and severely chastizes the backward, undemocratic, and often cruel hierarchy of American athletics.
She carefully outlines the rigors and trials of aspiring athletes in the field of track, and does so in such a way that the reader can appreciate the details and hardships of a runner, even if he unfamilair is with sports.
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