THE FANCY DANCER

The author of The Front Runner has written another baroque, gay romance--this time about a 28-year-old priest who suddenly discovers the love that has no name. Everybody but book-banner Mrs. Shoup likes young activist Father Meeker, but particularly Vidal Stump--an intelligent, part-Indian, ex-con who fixes motorbikes, supports a half-wit young mother and her child (not his own), and beats up rednecks so nobody in the dying ranch town of Cottonwood will guess he's the biggest faggot in Montana. The affair, just like golden lads and lasses, turns to dust, but not before Vidal decides to return to college, and Father Meeker comes out to his bishop and his parents, and gets a nice new job heading the diocesan council. For the predisposed.