WE SHOULD NOT BE FRIENDS

A veteran book editor recounts a long-lasting bond between seeming opposites.

“From the start it was clear that Maxey and I should not be friends,” writes Schwalbe, the author of The End of Your Life Book Club. Over time, the author, who “was friends with most of the other gays and lesbians” on campus at Yale, realized that his eventual friend Chris Maxey, a boisterous “jock,” was far less prejudiced that the author assumed. Their friendship grew only to be nearly killed when, seemingly as a joke, Maxey repeatedly shouted an anti-gay slur at other players during a beer-soaked pool game. Schwalbe was understandably hurt and angry, mostly at himself “for not saying anything, and for letting down my guard.” However, as the author demonstrates, Maxey is a complex, thoughtful individual. Though a devotee of neoconservative military historian Robert Kagan and fully embedded in the macho culture of athletes, Maxey recognized his transgression even as he committed it. Life went on, and while Schwalbe and his other friends entered the arts and the professions, Maxey became a Navy SEAL, taking part in bloody operations in Panama and elsewhere. He married an admiral’s daughter, left the service, raised a family, and built a private school on the island of Eleuthera after a brief stint in corporate life. Schwalbe candidly recounts other misreadings of intention, the weathering of life events and illnesses, and finally, nearing 60, their accommodations to each other—though, on Schwalbe’s part, a reticence about expressing affection. Across decades, both men have taught each other tolerance for difference. “Maxey had helped me realize that people you don’t like aren’t always who you think they are, even when you are quite sure—and what’s more, even if they are, they may want to change,” writes the author.

An affecting, rewarding story of an unlikely friendship that, against all seeming odds, has endured.