Barney Frank wrote a memoir, and I dropped everything so I could begin reading it immediately. I didn’t know it was coming out, but clicked on an article in Politico which turned out to be an excerpt from it, about how Frank came out as gay in 1987. The excerpt was magnificent—informative, humble, quotable—and I waited patiently for a couple of days before the official release date of the Kindle edition of the book.
The book is propelled by a thesis rather than a chronology. Frank notes at its outset that he is a politician and a gay man, and in his lifetime he has seen the respect for politicians plummet while the acceptance of LGBT persons has risen. This gives the book an immediate focus and perspective, so that Frank doesn’t have to constantly tell you what’s important or what things were like 40 years ago. The narrative moves confidently and clearly. It’s the story of accomplishments, but mainly the story of what can be accomplished when people accept you.
Reading the coming-out chapters reminded me that I knew Barney Frank was gay long before much of America did. It seems to have been a fairly open secret in Boston, the kind of thing gossips liked to spread around in the gossipy ‘80s, especially in the club and arts scenes where being gay was not so much scandalous as dishy. A lot of people clearly knew or suspected. I knew because Barney Frank used to shop at the Paperback Booksmith bookstore/newsstand where I worked in Copley Square and buy gay porn there. He was very open about it. My first night working there, a co-worker told me flat-out “Barney Frank buys gay porn here.” I was at the register at least a couple of those times. I was polite and respectful, as I am always, but it would have been an awkward time to discuss politics with him or even make a big deal about him being Barney Frank. Wish I could have been more forthcoming. My admiration for his work, his intellect, his sense of humor has never wavered. So glad he wrote a book.