Harlan’s Race is the first of two sequels to one of the most celebrated gay love stories of all time, The Front Runner. Considering the time lapse between the publishing of these two books, it’s reasonable to think that Patricia Nell Warren didn’t plan on continuing this storyline, yet eventually bent to the pressure from fans. Happily, she did not regurgitate the original classic. Hardly.
Harlan’s Race has two primary plots, which intertwine and ultimately boost each other to conclusion. The foreground plot has all the elements of a good mystery novel. The story opens with a revisit of Billy’s death and a renewed focus on the “spotter who got away.” Along the route to find him, our hapless but familiar cast face untraceable death threats, private detectives, stones thrown through windows, another shooting, unfulfilled childhood passions, and a case file of shady characters including a scorned former student, radical right-wing groups, and an insanely, unrelentingly angry ex-wife. The whodunit angle plays out superbly, even if the final revelation was not a complete surprise to this reviewer.
The background plot might be most concisely called “Will Someone Kick Harlan’s Ass?” and “What’s the Vince du Jour?” In Runner, Harlan fights the natural instincts to come out and to love Billy, then steadfastly holds his heart of steel together to the bursting point before finally allowing himself to touch and express his grief over Billy’s loss. Here, Harlan is as stubborn as ever, keeping an ironclad facade while warring with himself over his sexuality, his feelings, jealousy, sex, and the all-too-close ghosts of his past. I almost cheered when one of the private detectives, Chino, finally broke through the stone exterior. Chino, by the way, fares much better in the characterization department. Vince does not help matters much when he changes personalities with almost every change in location, in his incessant quest to find a release for his conflicted rage and love. Harlan all too often is the release valve for both. Yet, Vince’s loyalty holds him together and the minor love story angle, this time around, lasts through the final pages.
There are plenty of minor threads to boot, which clearly make this a book written in the 90s. No one will have trouble spotting the earliest appearances of what is to become the AIDS crisis. Disease and death hang over this story like a thick fog, and characters that felt young and vibrant in Runner now feel old and sick. Sex seems more frequent and more graphic than before, yet less intimate too. Drugs still abound, but their ill effects get all the attention. The 80s homophobic backlash is in full regalia. For a piece of fiction, it feels terribly real.
Billy is hardly forgotten throughout this story and his occasional resurfacing through dreams and memories provide some of the most poignant and heartfelt scenes in the story. Because of this, the book cannot be fully enjoyed without having first read The Front Runner. That should be no problem, because that book remains required reading for all. This one is not as important, but it is gripping, timely, and relevant. Unusual for a middle book in a trilogy, the book ends with only one glaring plot point unresolved, that of the fate of Falcon. No doubt, Nell Warren was thinking ahead. So am I.