Rating: 
Summary: Stronger Kick than the original
Review: Reading Harlan's Race for the first time is like a refreshing slap to the face. I love The Frontrunner and Billy but in a way, throughout the years and the way it has been heralded as THE gay classic of all time, has made it seem less realistic and almost fable-like and surreal (despite the shocking conclusion).This book relates the events that happened after Billy's murder and maybe, I can relate to it more, because it deals with death and rebirth, agony and triumph, hatred and love in a way that is more tangible, even grittier and harsher than but nonetheless as beautiful as the Frontrunner.
Rating:
Summary: Gay Life Through Two Decades
Review: The first time I read Harlan's Race I was angry and disappointed. It wasn't The Front Runner which somehow I expected it to be.Reading through the trilogy again now, I find Harlan's Race to have tremendous merit in it's own right. Here is a man who had been tremendously troubled accepting his own homosexuality, who lost everything in losing his first true love -- after waiting so long for it. Beyond the tremendous grief Harlan Brown must attempt to put somewhere, he is haunted by the killer of his lover Billy, for years. This story blends the evolving developments in Harlan, Vince and Jacques (the original main characters) along with a depthful development of Chino, one of the two security guards working for Billy when he was killed in Montreal. It's not an easy road life... and being gay! That's a very well made point in each of the sub-stories contained within the larger picture of Harlan's Race. The book is reflective of the changes that took place from the 1970's when The Front Runner took place through the 1980's and early '90's. As such, it addresses AIDS, activism in the gay community, wins and losses for the GLBT community. It also reflects the growing right wind about face which occurred through the political climate of the 1980's. What seemed -- even with all of it's obstacles to be a time of individual freedom, relatively, in the '70's -- is completely obliterated through the '80's. The story is a good one. I'm not sure that Warren has to wait so long to write it, but I do appreciate the perspective she offers of a group of men and women's lives over time. The book more than foreshadows the next book in the trilogy as Betsy, one of Billy's best friends, agrees to be the birth mother of his child (Billy and Harlan had wanted a child together and each stored their semen in a cryogenics bank before Billy died.) The book ends around the birth and first year of Billy's son's life. Harlan calls him Falcon. Betsy all but reneges on her agreement to maintain shared custody of the child with Harlan and ultimately moves away completely. In the context of the violence which continued to threaten Harlan's life, this is somewhat understandable. A much longer snapshot of time than the short period that is covered in the Olympics. Well written and important to continuing the story without telling it as if it were still the '70's.Warren is a tremendous voice in the gay literary genre!
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