PRIDE MONTH 2024! Smahtguy: The Life and Times of Barney Frank is a graphic biography with an added level of authenticity given that its creator is Eric Orner, the one-time staff counsel and press secretary for the former member of Congress. Orner admits his account of Smart’s political journey has an element of dramatisation to it with occasional narrative liberties and condensing of events but his familiarity with his subject ensures the reader feels immersed in Frank’s life from the very beginning of Smahtguy.
One of America’s first openly gay politicians Frank’s story is a truly engrossing one, his rise made all the more unlikely for his unkempt awkwardness and thick Jersey accent. Smahtguy follows him from his student politics days, his 1960s activism and his early life as a closeted gay man, through to his coming-of-age as a political force, his struggles with his sexuality, and both the triumphs and scandals he lived through and survived throughout the years.
As part of our Pride Month coverage here at Broken Frontier, though, it’s obviously Frank’s role as a leading campaigner for the gay community in an era where being outed was a constant fear that makes Smahtguy such an important book for coverage. Orner’s approach to mirroring that public face with the lonely private one is outstanding in the way it contrasts and compares the dualism of his world in those days when Frank concealed his true self to avoid possible ruin. It ensures that when we reach the point where his sexuality becomes public knowledge we feel all the more connected to him for having experienced his inner turmoil alongside him.
This is complemented by Orner’s distinctive use of expositional narration with snappy dialogue and quietly expressive visuals. There’s a commentary here that works well in providing retrospective analysis of events. It ensures that Smahtguy is never bogged down in its depictions of the minutiae of legislation because we are always so invested in the very human character at the centre of it. He’s portrayed as abrupt but compassionate, clumsy but sharp, capable of ill-advised recklessness in his personal relationships but also of pioneering work in gay rights.
Orner’s art is densely packed in terms of panel arrangements and page structures which means that the very occasional shift into less claustrophobic layouts or character close-ups for emotional impact hits the reader all the more forcefully. One latter scene set during damage control around Bill Clinton’s sex scandal perhaps best sums up how far his status as a major player for the Democrats in Congress has grown: “A few years ago I was politically dead. Now I can’t get the president off the phone.”
As a UK reader I cannot pretend to have a great depth of knowledge of Frank’s life or wider politics but Smahtguy isn’t simply a graphic biography of one man. It’s also a book that reminds us of how hard the fight for the freedoms and rights of the queer community has been over the last several decades and, at a time when LGBTQ+ people are experiencing an appalling uprise in discrimination and hate that, in itself, is just as important.
Eric Orner (W/A) • Metropolitan Books, $25.99
Review by Andy Oliver
