THE FRONT RUNNER

by Patricia Warren ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 3, 1974

There are ""kickers,"" those who run with the pack in a long-distance race and try to win with a sprint in the final quarter, and there are the ""front runners,"" who like to stay in front the whole race through. Billy Sive is the latter, a master in the five and ten thousand meter, prospect for the 1976 Montreal Olympics if he can get by the various national amateur athletic associations and the Olympic Committee. All of these conservative institutions are trying to do him in for his embarrassing homosexual marriage to his coach, Harlan Brown. After endless harassments, legal maneuvers, and unwarranted optimism (a mythical Supreme Court decision forbidding discrimination against gays) Billy not only makes the Olympic team, carries the U.S. flag in the opening parade, and becomes the most popular person at the Games (dancing egalitarian-wise with both ladies and gentlemen at the Canadian discotheques), but wins the 10,000 meters and is literally but a few steps away from victory in the five when tragedy, a la JFK, strikes, changing Billy from instant fag hero to instant fag martyr. This melodramatic, sentimental, and altogether unbelievable view cf the male gay world (unfortunately written by a woman) is a valiant attempt to create a male counterpart to the death-wish hysteria of A Well of Loneliness; no doubt it will reassure the doubting gay that he made a correct choice in the sex of the object of his lust. The racing scenes and the chicanery and hypocrisy of the AAU, NCAA, and IOC -- written by a pro who knows -- are, however, well done and timely.

Pub Date: April 3, 1974

ISBN: 0964109964

Page Count: -

Publisher: Morrow

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974

Categories: FICTION