Executive Overview
In the realm of contemporary personal nonfiction, few works capture the idiosyncratic architecture of lifelong platonic intimacy quite like Jane Gillette’s memoir, Old Friends. Published within The Missouri Review’s vibrant online prose anthology, BLAST, Gillette’s essay serves as both a deeply personal elegy and a sharp sociological study of how friendships evolve across decades, ideological shifts, professional transitions, and geographic divides.
The narrative centers on the author’s complex, decades-long bond with a man named Steve—a tax law professor, anti-war activist, and enigmatic Washington insider who passed away from pancreatic cancer on August 17, 2018. When Gillette attended Steve’s memorial service in September 2019, she listened to eulogists focus predictably on his public-facing attributes: his political activism, his commitment to progressive causes, and his enthusiasm for pedagogy. Yet, Gillette realized that her Steve—the confidant who dissected literary classics, endured messy divorces, delivered Chinese takeout from the Yenching Palace, and dispensed unorthodox travel advice—belonged to an entirely different emotional landscape.
This piece examines Gillette’s memoir not merely as a sentimental recounting of the past, but as a masterclass in the reliability and fallibility of human memory. By exploring the intersections of academia, political radicalism in the nation’s capital, and the quiet sanctuaries of private life, Gillette challenges standard biographical narratives. Through a rigorous examination of the text, this article unpacks the structural nuances, historical backdrops, and psychological underpinnings of Old Friends: A Memoir, providing a comprehensive look at what it truly means to know someone across the vast expanse of a lifetime.
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Detailed Chronology: The Evolution of a Lifelong Bond
To understand the trajectory of Jane Gillette and Steve’s relationship is to trace a map of late-twentieth-century American intellectual life, moving from the radicalized university campuses of the Vietnam era to the genteel dinner parties of Washington, D.C., and finally to the quiet digital distances of the twenty-first century.
1. The Crucible of Academia and Anti-War Activism (1970s–1980s)
The origins of Steve and Gillette’s connection are rooted in the intellectual ferment of Washington, D.C. Steve, born in 1945, and Gillette, born in 1943, inhabited what Gillette affectionately terms "the olden time." Their paths initially crossed tangentially during the anti-war movements of 1970, when Steve and Gillette’s then-husband worked for the Moratorium to stop the Vietnam War. While Gillette spent her hours in the Library of Congress wrestling with a doctoral dissertation—and early, nagging doubts about the validity of formal literary criticism—Steve was already carving out a path that bridged legal scholarship and political resistance.
Their bond solidified during Gillette’s tenure as an adjunct professor of English. Every Friday afternoon at 5:00 PM, a collective known simply as "The Committee" gathered at The Tombs, a local academic watering hole. Composed primarily of tenure-track assistant professors from Classics, English, Philosophy, and Economics—with Gillette as the sole adjunct—The Committee served as both a social release valve and a crucible for institutional politics.
When students erected a shanty town in front of the university to protest South African apartheid, institutional wheeling and dealing transformed The Committee into a makeshift "class" on apartheid, directed by a law professor. Steve, possessing a deeply ingrained social conscience, stepped in to teach tax law to a table of professors who already understood the moral bankruptcy of apartheid. This academic penance role quickly morphed into broader political actions, including protests along Massachusetts Avenue attended by cultural touchstones like a grown-up Stevie Wonder.
2. The Architecture of Intimacy: Divorces and Nightly Dispatches (Late 1980s–1990s)
As Gillette drifted away from academia—abandoning a career path constrained by the limitations placed on adjunct instructors who wrote short stories—her friendship with Steve entered a new, more intimate phase. Both individuals were navigating the complex terrain of marriages that were quietly unraveling.
When Steve’s first major marriage (to Gaylord) dissolved after Gaylord stepped away from the domestic sphere, Steve dialed Gillette’s number almost nightly. These conversations formed the backbone of their enduring platonic romance. They were never lovers, largely because their emotional bandwidth was perpetually occupied by unrequited or complex attachments to other people. They talked through their romantic crises, discussed the books they were reading (or claimed to be reading, from The Magic Mountain to Love in the Time of Cholera), and shared milestones.
Gillette remembers celebrating her long-awaited divorce on November 9, 1989—the exact day the Berlin Wall fell. Steve acted as a stabilizing force during this turbulent transitional period: he helped her file her taxes for the first time, gifted her a laptop computer that enabled her to write short stories at night after her demanding shifts at the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and introduced her to the practical mechanics of survival in Washington, whether that meant buying Swedish meatballs at IKEA for a high-society lawyer’s party or coordinating legal protection against a stalking ex-lover.
3. Geographic Dispersion and the Final Chapter (2000–2018)
As the new millennium dawned, life pulled them apart geographically. In 2000, Gillette relocated to the West Coast with a new husband. Simultaneously, Steve entered a period of stability when he married Laura, a law professor at New York University.
With Steve finally settled and happy, the nightly phone calls subsided. Their interactions became punctuated by infrequent visits, transatlantic travels to destinations like Venice and Nantucket, and long-distance memories. Yet, the foundational intimacy remained intact. Even as late-stage revelations emerged—such as Steve’s past marriages and bizarre, unverified whispers about potential involvement with the Secret Service—their connection resisted obsolescence.
The narrative reaches its inevitable, poignant conclusion in August 2018. When Laura called to inform Gillette that Steve was battling pancreatic cancer, miscommunication initially softened the blow. Upon realizing the terminal reality, Gillette’s impulse to travel and offer bedside comfort was checked by Laura’s protective boundaries. Unable to visit and psychologically disinclined toward conventional prayer, Gillette turned to the written word. Old Friends: A Memoir stands as her final, secular prayer for a man who spent his life constructing communities, mentoring the vulnerable, and forging unbreakable human bonds.
Supporting Context & Metrics: The Anatomy of Modern Memoir and Academic Precarity
To fully appreciate the weight of Gillette’s narrative, one must examine the broader socio-cultural frameworks that inform her essay: the economic realities of American higher education in the late twentieth century, the unique ecosystem of Washington, D.C., intellectual circles, and the literary traditions of the personal essay.
The Adjunct Experience and the Rejection of Literary Formalism
Gillette’s casual dismissal of formal literary criticism and her eventual departure from academia highlight a significant systemic issue within higher education. During the decades she taught freshman English as an adjunct, the structural inequities of academic labor were becoming deeply entrenched. Adjunct instructors—often referred to pejoratively as academic gig workers today—bore the brunt of undergraduate instruction while being systematically excluded from tenure-track security, institutional power, and professional advancement.
Gillette’s decision to abandon the university was not merely a rejection of bureaucratic politics; it was an artistic necessity. Her devotion to writing short fiction—a craft that would eventually earn her prestigious accolades, including an O. Henry Prize, a Lawrence Foundation prize, and publication in high-tier literary journals like the Virginia Quarterly Review and The Michigan Quarterly Review—required an escape from the sterile dissection of texts. Steve’s gift of a laptop computer acted as a vital bridge, empowering her transition from an undervalued adjunct to a decorated master of short prose.
Washington, D.C., as a Character
Washington is rarely portrayed in literature through the intimate, domestic lens that Gillette applies. While popular culture fixates on the city’s partisan machinery, political scandals, and geopolitical posturing, Gillette’s D.C. is an urban village defined by specific coordinates:
- The Tombs: The historic Georgetown tavern where academics gathered to vent and bond.
- The Yenching Palace: The iconic Connecticut Avenue Chinese restaurant whose nightly deliveries sustained Steve’s household through formal dinner parties and everyday family meals.
- Massachusetts Avenue and Cleveland Park: The backdrops for student protests and elite legal gatherings.
This localized geography grounds the memoir in a specific sensory reality, proving that political idealism and intellectual discourse in the capital were inextricably linked to mundane, domestic rituals.
Official Statements & Critical Reception
While Old Friends: A Memoir is a work of personal nonfiction rather than an institutional press release, its publication within The Missouri Review’s BLAST anthology places it within a distinguished lineage of contemporary prose that resists traditional formal constraints.
Editorial Intent of BLAST
Launched by The Missouri Review, the BLAST digital platform was specifically designed to house prose "too vibrant to be confined between the covers of a print journal." The publication of Gillette’s memoir underscores the editorial mission to champion narrative non-fiction that blends lyrical introspection with sharp, observational humor. Editors note that memoirs dealing with grief and aging often fall into traps of sentimentality; Gillette’s work avoids this pitfall through its unflinching honesty regarding the gaps, contradictions, and unreliable nature of human memory.
Literary Accolades of the Author
Jane Gillette’s standing in the literary community lends authoritative weight to her retrospective reflections. With a bibliography that includes The Trail of the Demon and Other Stories (published by Missouri Review Books in Fall 2017) and regular appearances in journals such as the Hopkins Review, Antigonish Review, and Michigan Quarterly Review, Gillette brings the precision of a seasoned fiction writer to the architecture of memoir. Her prose relies on precise pacing, understated emotional resonance, and a refusal to manufacture tidy resolutions for complex human relationships.
Future Outlook: The Enduring Legacy of Platonism in Memoir
As contemporary literature continues to explore the boundaries between fiction and nonfiction, essays like Old Friends: A Memoir point toward a renewed appreciation for platonic love in narrative art. Historically, memoirs dealing with long-term relationships have disproportionately favored romantic partnerships, familial lineages, or mentorships marked by explicit hierarchies. Gillette’s work carves out vital space for the lateral, peer-to-peer friendship—a bond sustained not by legal contracts, shared DNA, or romantic obligation, but by the radical choice to keep talking to one another across the decades.
For readers and scholars of contemporary prose, Gillette’s memoir offers a roadmap for how to write about the dead without canonizing them. By acknowledging Steve’s flaws, her own hazy recollection of events (such as her friend Vicky’s insistence that the fake apartheid class was merely a dream), and the sheer randomness of their shared history, Gillette presents a remarkably human portrait.
As Old Friends continues to resonate with readers of The Missouri Review, it invites a broader cultural conversation about memory, grief, and the spaces we inhabit long after our loved ones are gone. Whether Steve is currently making "new Old Friends" in the afterlife or simply living on in the fractured, affectionate recollections of those who knew his idiosyncratic brilliance, Gillette’s memoir ensures that her version of him remains vividly, stubbornly alive.
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