Will Schwalbe, the author of The End of Your Life Book Club and Books for Living, now turns his attention to an unlikely friendship. Schwalbe, who thought he had all the friends he needed in college, all the literary geeks and lesbians and gay men like him, found several unexpected friends when he was a junior at Yale. He was invited to join a secret society, and that’s where he met Chris Maxey. “From the start it was clear that Maxey and I should not be friends. What was less obvious was that I was much more prejudiced against him than he was against me.” We Should Not Be Friends is subtitled: The Story of a Friendship.
Chris Maxey was a jock when he and Schwalbe met. He was a loud, over-the-top wrestler from Pennsylvania. But, they both ended up meeting at a secret society selected precisely because of their differences. And, while Maxey showed an interest in getting to know Will, Will expressed all his worries about being gay at a time when AIDS was getting more attention in the news. Will’s prejudice? What would he ever have in common with a jock who went on to become a Navy SEAL for six years?
In the course of forty years, the friendship between Schwalbe and Maxey had it ups and downs, often because of Will’s reluctance to communicate. After Maxey left the Navy, he and his wife, Pam, took their growing family to the Bahamas where Maxey put his heart and soul into building a school with an environmental emphasis. But, it was another friend from Yale, David Singer, who often kept Will and Maxey informed of what was happening in their lives. It was only later that Schwalbe realized he wasn’t there for Maxey when his marriage was in trouble, or when his children moved to New Jersey.
There’s so much meat in this memoir. Schwalbe discusses his fears as a gay man in the 80s during the AIDS crisis. He talks about family health crisis, and his own delays in talking with Maxey. It took almost forty years for Will to even ask why Maxey left the SEALs. The book covers aging, and health issues for both men. Maxey grows more passionate about the ocean and the environment as time passes.
In the long run, though, We Should Not Be Friends, is about an unlikely friendship. It’s about the thin threads that keep a connection alive, even though people let it slip for years. For me, as I mentioned a week ago, this book forced me to examine my own friendships. Who are the unlikely people in my life, people who wouldn’t be there if I had met them when I was in grade school or high school? Schwalbe’s book is a memoir of forty years of friendship between a gay man who loves books and a jock who remained undiscovered as an individual for much of those forty years. Sometimes, it pays to ask the tough questions of our friends. And, sometimes, it pays to be honest with ourselves as well as our friends.
Will Schwalbe’s website is https://willschwalbe.com/
We Should Not Be Friends: The Story of a Friendship by Will Schwalbe. Knopf, 2023. ISBN 9780525654933 (hardcover), 336p.
FTC Full Disclosure – The publisher provided a galley through NetGalley, and I provided an honest review.
This reminded me of the Charles Schultz book, “I Need All The Friends I Can Get”
… and that always reminds me of the parody from Mad Magazine: “I Have All The Finks I Need.”
I think it’s the libra in me.
Oh, Glen. Made me laugh.
Thanks to you mentioning this last week, I am halfway through Schwalbe’s THE END OF YOUR LIFE BOOK CLUB, which I am really enjoying. This one is on hold at the library.
One thing I find fascinating is when two siblings in a family are gay, as with Schwalbe and his sister. His mother was quite an impressive person.
I really enjoyed The End of Your Life Book Club, too, Jeff. I just enjoy Schwalbe’s writing.
It’s interesting to read this latest book, and see how Schwalbe worries more about seeming gay to his straight friends than his friends think about it.
Many of my friends are writers, but I also have a very large group of friends, local as well as far-flung, who share my love of pandas and wildlife in general. My panda pals are in many different professions — business, IT, teaching, nursing, science, and others — and I would probably never have met any of them if Tai Shan had not been born at the Smithsonian National Zoo 17 years ago. I love them dearly, enjoy their in person company enormously, talk with them online in our panda groups, and thank that little panda cub (who is now a great big handsome guy living in China) for bringing us all together. OTOH, I know people who have just about everything in common with me but are not my friends.
I find friendships so interesting, Sandra. The people I gravitate to are often people who share my love of books, but they also complete me in other ways. They have traits I admire rather than ones that I share. They’re all more outgoing than I am. As I said on Thursday, my college roommate is an entertainer. One friend was a theater major. She’s a librarian, but she has that outgoing personality of many theater people. And, my best friend here shares that love of books, theater, and music, but she has much more eclectic taste than I do; she’s much more outgoing; she was athletic when she was younger, and she’s a much kinder person than I am.
I am glad you spelled out book friends, Lesa. I recently moved to a new town and have a few new pals but no one I can discuss books with. Three years ago friends from an old job started up a zoom happy hour on Fridays where we talked about books, movies, and our lives for two years. Oh, how I miss them!