Will I love The Front Runner?

I am long overdue in re-visiting this book, which was first read several years before I understood my sexual identity as a gay man.

It is a love story, a romance between a coach and his star athlete, and at the time I initially read it, it validated for me that two men could fall in love and be unashamed.

I grew up in a time when homosexuality was not even discussed in “polite” company, and this novel aided my journey to self-acceptance.

A tale of three American athletes and their coach, all gay, and told from the POV of the coach. Included because, to me, it is a piece of queer fiction history. It was published in the seventies pre the nationwide legalisation of gay sex in the United States. Gay friends have told me how important it was for them to read The Front Runner back then. It’s all about the validation that arises from seeing people like oneself in print, as aces know. There’s nothing on the page to worry aces. The only worrying thing is that sportspeople still have… show more.