Items

• Counter play
  A high school football novel about friends Brad and Alex, one straight, one gay. Alex’s sexuality is revealed in the first few pages, but remains central to the plot, as Brad is forced to choose between his friend and his wider community. Anne Snyder (1922-2001) wrote seventeen books, mainly young adult ‘problem novels’ which explored issues such as alcoholism, homelessness and anorexia. She collaborated with Louis Pelletier on several titles. Originally marketed as an adult novel, ‘Counter Play’ was republished in 1987 as ‘The Truth about Alex’ and was adapted into a television movie of the same name, broadcast by HBO. Teen heartthrob Scott Baio (Chachi from ‘Happy Days’) played the character of Brad.
• The front runner
  After the Stonewall Uprising, many mainstream publishers realised they could have commercial success with gay fiction. ‘The Front Runner’ was the first bestselling novel of this era, selling millions of copies when first published in 1974 by William Morrow. The story concerns Billy Sive, a young, gay athlete training for the 1976 Olympics, and his relationship with his older sports coach. Patricia Nell Warren (1936-2019), who was also an athlete, considered the novel’s publication to be a step in her own coming-out process. Latterly, Warren self-published lesbian fiction under the Wildcat Press imprint, fought online censorship laws and was one of the initial fifty nominees for the National LGBTQ Wall of Honor in New York City. The edition seized was probably the 1975 Bantam Books paperback rather than the one on display here.