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Imserba Webstore - The Front Runner: A Novel
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List Price: $14.95
Our Price: $12.00
Your Save: $ 2.95 ( 20% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Wildcat Press
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780964109964
ISBN: 0964109964
Label: Wildcat Press
Manufacturer: Wildcat Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 320
Publication Date: 1996-06-01
Publisher: Wildcat Press
Studio: Wildcat Press
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: A reminder of what it means to be yourself
Comment: Though from another era, this book speaks eloquently of the bigotry gay people suffer as well as the love of one man for another that made them feel complete in their lives. The struggle of the protaganist to accept what he was and how he felt made me (a septuagenarian) remember similar feelings I had in my younger days.
Customer Rating:
Summary: This novel lives up the hype...and then some
Comment: Harlan Brown is a semi-disgraced gay track and running coach "hiding out" at an also-ran university althletic program minding his own business and enjoying a reasonable portion of normalcy, until a gifted young runner named Billy Sive and his two friends show up at the college looking for him because they have been dismissed from their program for admitting to being gay. Now Harlan must deal more publicly with his own homosexuality, he must learn and teach these young men about being gay, and he falls madly in love with Billy. To say this is a forbidden love is a vast understatement.
Let's be clear that this novel was published in the '70's. It is not a novel written recently and placed "as if" it was written in the '70's. So the cultural and terminology disconnects with today can be at once both frustrating and very insightful. (We've come a long way, baby. But we have so far, unfortunately, to go.) This wonderful novel is SO worth wading through the unfamiliar and arguably-dated references. Don't let it deter you.
This is possibly one of the most moving and interesting books I have ever read, and certainly so among gay-themed literature. (I don't get goose-bumps and teary-eyed often when I am reading; "Runner" did both.) The characters are likable, human, and interesting. The conflict feels genuine and is gut-wrenching. The story is wonderful and the writing transports you skillfully and fully into settings and scenes in which you feel involved and you really care about what happens. This is a sports novel that isn't really about sports. It's about love.
This gets my highest recommendation. The 300+ pages fly. Read it and enjoy.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Compelling Writing
Comment: The author's writing style is very compelling, and the theme of the book, at the time it was written, would have been a difficult subject. But it is treated realistically and empathetically. Her subsequent book `Harlan's Race' is also excellent, though less emotionally intense, in my view. I haven't yet read the 3rd part of this story.
Customer Rating:
Summary: typos
Comment: I was surprised of the book's paper stock, the typos & the lines that were not always straight across, some slanted . Not a good value for $25.00.
Customer Rating:
Summary: the front runner
Comment: this is very human story of love born of a front runner and his coach. It's funny, sad, and moving, all the aspects of real life in print. You can't help but fall alittle in love with Ms. Warren's characters. Ms. Warren has a wonder grasp of the gay male psyche. I reread this book after twenty some years and loved it all over again. you won't regret buying the book or reading over and over. ENJOY!
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