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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MEDIA CONTACT:
Time Ref: January-June,
2004
323 966-2466
MOST POPULAR GAY NOVEL CELEBRATES
THIRTY YEARS AND 30 MILLION READERS
The Front Runner
Marks 30th Anniversary This Year
LOS ANGELES--An internationally revered novel about
the love relationship between an ex-Marine track coach
and an openly gay athlete will mark its 30th anniversary
this year with an estimated thirty million readers
worldwide.
Landmark author
Patricia Nell Warren will commemorate
three decades for her most renowned novel, The Front
Runner, with appearances and book signings in cities
across America, including celebrations in New York and
Los Angeles in June to coincide with the author’s 68th
birthday.
In addition, Warren anticipates the release this
year, through
Wildcat Press, of the 30th Anniversary
edition of
The Front Runner, sporting a new cover,
historical retrospective and a new author’s foreword.
The first contemporary novel about gay love to make
the New York Times bestseller list and appeal to both
gay and mainstream readers, The Front Runner is
considered by most literary experts to be the most
popular gay novel in American history. Published in 21
separate editions and translated into ten languages to
date, The Front Runner has sold an estimated ten million
copies over three decades, and continues to be one of
the top selling gay novels worldwide.
Warren, who has written eight novels and four books
of poetry, has attracted an estimated thirty million
readers to date with her diverse literary subjects
ranging from gay life to Native American philosophy. Her
recent novels,
Billy’s Boy
and
The Wild Man, explore the
coming of age for gay youth in different cultures, and
have also won her critical acclaim for their
authenticity and unusual insight.
However, it was Warren's unique novel about openly
gay and lesbian athletes which made literary history and
forever sealed her place as a gay icon by cracking the
New York Times best-seller list with what Times critic
Richard Roberts heralded in 1974 as "the most moving,
monumental love story ever written about gay life."
The Front Runner, which has shepherded countless
thousands of gay men and women out of the closet over
the years and marked the gay rite of passage for many of
them, has unassumingly become what Update News
proclaimed in 1995, “the most important piece of
literature of the Post-Stonewall era."
“Few books in the gay community have so greatly
influenced self-esteem, political and social
perspectives—even fashion,” declares Warren’s long-time
business partner,
Tyler St. Mark.
“Most gay people who came out during the 70’s and 80’s
can tell you exactly where they were and what they were
doing when they first read this remarkable story,” he
says emphatically. “Many of them rushed out to purchase
running shoes and tank tops, inspired by the book’s
athletic theme,” he muses.
In an era when the entire sum of gay-themed novels
could fit on one library shelf, The Front Runner presented mainstream gay characters within an unusual
premise: a tough, conservative college track coach, who
is secretly homosexual, falls in love with an openly gay
runner. Together they confront hatred and prejudice all
the way to the '76 Olympics. The reaction by readers
worldwide has created a literary legacy few other gay
novels can come close to matching.
Thirty years after its premiere, when sales of a gay
book are considered a reasonable success at 20,000
copies, The Front Runner has never been out of print---a
phenomenon for any book much less a gay-themed one.
Perhaps one of the most evident and lasting legacies
of The Front Runner has been the establishment of over
100 gay and lesbian running clubs under the auspices of
the
International Front Runners.
Inspired by Warren’s novel, the first Front Runner club
was founded in San Francisco in 1974, and today there
are chapters in most states as well as ten other
countries around the world.
Equally noteworthy is the novel’s unusual cross-ever
appeal. The Front Runner has managed to attract
innumerable heterosexual readers as well over the years
and was included as one of the great sport stories of
all time in Brandt Aymar’s anthology, Men In Sports.
Indeed, it was mainstream film producers like Paul
Newman and Frank Perry who first scrambled to obtain the
motion picture rights due to its mainstream success, and
Hollywood has speculated for years which popular actors
would be cast in the roles of Coach Harlan Brown and
Olympic runner Billy Sive, as several productions have
attempted to get past the starting gate amid studio
concerns over the first large budgeted gay-themed motion
picture.
Over the years, Warren has received thousands of
letters from readers around the world expressing
appreciation for her having enhanced the quality of
their lives with her books; for having set principles by
which they could live, for having given them hope—even
for having turned some away from suicide. According to
many veteran activists in the gay community, Warren’s
novels have inspired countless gays and lesbians towards
self-acceptance and the courage to face homophobia with
pride, dignity and honesty.
Although born out of the tumultuous civil-rights
issues of the 60’s and 70’s, Warren’s landmark novel has
retained its capacity to inspire and influence young
people today. While those who first read The Front
Runner in high school and college are now in their
forties and fifties, succeeding generations have
continued to discover this gay classic, including a
growing number of open-minded straight teens.
“I think it resonates so deeply with people
regardless of age, gender, or sexuality because of its
universality,” says 19-year-old Jonathan Newman, an
openly gay college athlete at Vassar College. “It is a
deeply moving and important story, perhaps even more
impactful today than thirty years ago!” he explains.
Newman, a distance runner who hopes someday to audition
for the film production, is one of hundreds of new
readers who have connected to The Front Runner legacy.
"I am always pleased to embrace another generation of
readers," says Warren, who now receives more email than
hand-written letters from her newest readers. "It is my
earnest hope that The Front Runner will continue to
inspire people all over the world who, because of their
sexuality, must confront hatred, rejection and prejudice
every day of their lives,” she states fervently.
# # # # # # #
For
more information on Patricia Nell Warren and The Front
Runner:
www.patricianellwarren.com or
www.thefrontrunner.com or
www.wildcatpress.com
Please use
the media contact to schedule an interview or obtain a
press kit.
A review copy of The Front Runner is available upon
request.
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