The Charioteer

After enduring an injury at Dunkirk during World War II, Laurie Odell is sent to a rural veterans’ hospital in England to convalesce. There he befriends the young, bright Andrew, a conscientious objector serving as an orderly. As they find solace and companionship together in the idyllic surroundings of the hospital, their friendship blooms into a discreet, chaste romance. Then one day, Ralph Lanyon, a mentor from Laurie’s schoolboy days, suddenly reappears in Laurie’s life, and draws him into a tight-knit social circle of world-weary gay men. Laurie is forced to choose between the sweet ideals of innocence and the distinct pleasures of experience.

Originally published in the United States in 1959, The Charioteer is a bold, unapologetic portrayal of male homosexuality during World War II that stands with Gore Vidal’s The City and the Pillar and Christopher Isherwood’s Berlin Stories as a monumental work in gay literature.

The story of Laurie Odell, wounded survivor of Dunkirk, slowly becoming aware of his own sexual nature.

Life as both a soldier and a gay man during World War II-a classic of gay fiction. “Renault is one of the major novelists of our time. Her insights are phenomenal...her rendering of truth as she sees it forthright, courageous, informative, and stirring” (New York Herald Tribune).

Library Journal

Talk about diversity: The Charioteer (1959) is a love story between two men, set in Dunkirk during World War I; The Praise Singer (1978) reveals the ancient Greek poet Simonides; and The Friendly Young Ladies (1944) takes place in 1937 Bloomsbury. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Mary Renault was born in London and educated at Oxford. She then trained for three years as a nurse, and wrote her first published novel, Promise of Love. Her next three novels were written while serving in WWII. After the war, she settled in South Africa and traveled considerably in Africa and Greece. It was at this time that she began writing her brilliant historical reconstructions of ancient Greece, including The King Must Die, The Last of the Wine, and The Persian Boy. She died in Cape Town in 1983.