Something Raven Smith’s Men isn’t is a trauma memoir. I’ve repeatedly been told I’m not like other boys. In tone, it feels like an astute, elevated version of Smith’s Instagram feed, something he’d hoped for. It’s as wise as it is bawdy the chain-smoking baby of Eve Babitz and Kim Cattrall.
There are tales of fathers, boyfriends, perverts and Ken dolls porn, steroids, sports teams and lads. Who are they? Why are they? Where did we find them? Raven Smith’s Men is about the males that have come to define his life. And now his latest essay collection grapples with the most omnipresent mammal that isn’t actually talked about very much: men. Smith is also a Vogue columnist, red carpet fixture and bestselling author – his 2020 book Trivial Pursuits anatomised the mini, ludicrous traumas of modern life. The bored it-girl who fell out a window in Sex and the City. “SUNDAYS” appears next to a slide of Trinny Woodall in a cloud of cigarette smoke. “Christmas shopping on a budget,” he writes alongside an image of Winona Ryder shoplifting. His captions read like howls of ironic despair and source the universality buried in pop culture camp.
To his nearly 200,000 followers on Instagram, Raven Smith speaks in what could be termed “gay internet”: dry, lusty, disillusioned, pictures of celebrities make up much of his feed.
