Executive Overview
In the literary landscape of personal memoir, few works achieve the delicate balance of intimacy, sharp self-awareness, and institutional critique found in Jane Gillette’s essay, Old Friends: A Memoir. Published in The Missouri Review’s online-only prose anthology, BLAST—a curated space dedicated to contemporary prose too vibrant and unconventional to be neatly bound within the physical pages of a traditional print journal—Gillette’s work explores the complex, idiosyncratic architecture of human relationships.
At its core, Old Friends is an autopsy of a profound, non-romantic platonic bond that spanned decades. The narrative centers on Gillette’s late friend, Steve—a tax law professor, anti-war activist, and Washington, D.C., fixture who passed away from pancreatic cancer on August 17, 2018. When Gillette attended Steve’s memorial service more than a year later, in September 2019, she listened to eulogies that painted a portrait of a civic-minded intellectual deeply entrenched in political activism and legal pedagogy. Yet, Gillette realized that her Steve—the confidant who sustained her through divorces, late-night phone marathons, literary debates, and domestic shifts—belonged to an entirely different emotional ecosystem.
Gillette’s memoir addresses a universal human phenomenon: the multiplicity of identity. The people we know are not monoliths; rather, they refract into a thousand different versions depending on who is holding the mirror. Through a narrative style marked by wry humor, affectionate skepticism, and narrative detours, Gillette constructs a literary memorial not just to a man, but to the bygone eras of academic counter-culture, the shifting social geography of Washington, D.C., and the quiet salvation found in enduring companionship.
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Detailed Chronology: A Tapestry of Decades
The Origins of "The Committee" and Academic Disillusionment
The relationship between Jane Gillette and Steve began in the crucible of late-20th-century academia. Born in 1943 (with Steve following in 1945), Gillette entered Steve’s orbit while working as an adjunct professor of English at a local university. Every Friday afternoon at 5:00 PM, a collective known simply as "The Committee" gathered at The Tombs, a quintessential campus bar, to debrief the trials of the academic week over cold beers.
While the other members of The Committee were assistant professors on the tenure track within the Classics, English, Philosophy, and Economics departments—destined for "real" university committees that kept institutional cogs turning—Gillette remained an adjunct. Her tenure with the group coincided with the volatile political climate of the Vietnam War era and the anti-apartheid student protests that swept university campuses.
The political theater of the time created surreal institutional compromises. When students erected a shantytown to protest South African apartheid, resulting in police intervention and arrests, the administration brokered a deal: charges would be dropped if the university formally convened a class on apartheid. In a bureaucratic sleight of hand, the university transformed The Committee into an official class. Thus, in addition to their Friday sessions at the bar, Steve and Gillette began convening on Wednesday afternoons under the direction of a law professor heavily involved in anti-apartheid activism.
This period marked Gillette’s growing disillusionment with literary criticism and the disposable labor model of adjunct teaching. Recognizing that her position would never be elevated and that her true passion lay in writing short stories rather than theoretical critiques, Gillette eventually stepped away from teaching. Yet, her connection with Steve survived the academic exodus, transitioning into a deeply personal alliance.
The Political and Personal Landscape of Washington, D.C.
As the decades progressed, Steve and Gillette’s friendship evolved against the backdrop of Washington, D.C.’s hyper-politicized, socially complex milieu. Their paths frequently crossed at the intersection of high politics and domestic mundanity. Gillette recalls attending anti-war efforts tied to the Moratorium in 1970, tracking the defeat of the McGovern-Hatfield Amendment from the Senate balcony, and navigating the social strata of Georgetown dinner parties where food was routinely ordered from the iconic Yenching Palace on Connecticut Avenue.
Their friendship deepened significantly during periods of romantic upheaval. When Steve’s marriage to his first wife, Gaylord, dissolved, and when Gillette’s own marriage similarly came to an end, the two friends anchored one another. They established a ritual of nightly phone calls, dissecting the complexities of their respective heartbreaks, current romances (including Steve’s transatlantic relationship with a woman involved in South African affairs who eventually moved to London), and an endless rotation of classic literature.
Gillette’s memoir vividly details Steve’s pragmatic advice for surviving transatlantic travel, his eccentricities (such as introducing her to IKEA meatballs for a Cleveland Park dinner party), and his loyalty during personal crises—including a harrowing period when Gillette was stalked by an ex-lover, a situation resolved through the strategic intervention of a well-connected Washington attorney in Steve’s network.
The Later Years: Stability and the Shadow of Illness
As the millennium turned, Gillette relocated to the West Coast with a new husband, introducing a geographical distance that temporarily quieted the frantic pace of their daily check-ins. However, the bond remained unbroken. Steve eventually found lasting domestic peace and intellectual partnership with Laura, a law professor at NYU. With Steve finally settled and happy, the nightly crisis calls naturally subsided, replaced by the warm, occasional rhythms of long-distance friendship, international travel, and mutual respect.
The narrative reaches its inevitable, poignant climax with the diagnosis of Steve’s pancreatic cancer. When Laura called to break the news, a brief auditory misunderstanding—hearing "prostate" instead of "pancreatic"—momentarily offered false hope before the devastating reality set in. Prevented from visiting him in his final days due to the advanced stage of his illness, Gillette channeled her grief into the act of writing. Steve passed away on August 17, 2018, leaving behind a legacy that extended far beyond the academic and political achievements recognized at his formal memorial service.
Supporting Context & Metrics: The Literary World of Jane Gillette
To fully appreciate Old Friends: A Memoir, it is essential to examine the literary pedigree of its author and the platform that chose to house it.
Publication Venue: The Missouri Review and BLAST
The Missouri Review (TMR) has long stood as one of the premier literary journals in the United States, known for discovering and publishing rigorous, emotionally resonant fiction, poetry, and essays. In an era where print publications face severe economic and structural constraints, TMR launched BLAST—an online-only prose anthology specifically engineered to house work that is too vibrant, unconventional, or formally daring to be confined within traditional print margins. Old Friends fits this mandate perfectly, utilizing a conversational, essayistic prose style that mimics the cadence of spoken memory while maintaining exquisite literary control.
The Author’s Craft: Award-Winning Short Fiction
Jane Gillette is not merely a memoirist reflecting on past decades; she is an accomplished master of short fiction. Her pedigree includes:
- Publications: Her short stories have appeared in elite literary journals, including the Hopkins Review, Antigonish Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, and The Missouri Review.
- Accolades: Gillette is the recipient of both a Lawrence Foundation prize and a prestigious O. Henry Prize, recognizing excellence in short story writing.
- Collections: In Fall 2017, Missouri Review Books published her critically acclaimed short story collection, The Trail of the Demon and Other Stories.
This background sheds light on the structural choices within Old Friends. The essay reads with the narrative compression, sharp character sketches, and precise pacing characteristic of a seasoned fiction writer. Every anecdote—whether it is forgetting her cat Dexter at the veterinarian’s office after an impromptu drink with Steve, or questioning rumors of Steve’s alleged involvement with the Secret Service during Clinton’s second inauguration—serves a dual purpose: it illuminates character while interrogating the unreliability of human memory.
Official Statements & Thematic Analysis
While Old Friends is a personal memoir rather than a corporate or institutional report, the "official statements" within the work are found in the stark contrast between public eulogies and private remembrance.
At Steve’s memorial service on September 29, 2019, the speakers delivered authoritative, consensus-driven assessments of his life. They emphasized his public-facing roles:
- The Anti-War Activist: A man deeply committed to political opposition against foreign conflicts and apartheid.
- The Dedicated Educator: A brilliant tax law professor who transformed legal pedagogy into a tool for social justice and moral awakening.
In counterpoint, Gillette’s personal testimony provides a necessary human corrective. Her "official statement" on Steve acknowledges that while institutional memory records civic contributions, the true measure of a person exists in the private spaces they shared:
"Although I’m hampered by memory’s flaws, I am now writing down some memories, flawed or not, because I feel they address the issues of why my Steve was different from their Steve and what an old friend is."
This thematic dichotomy touches on broader philosophical questions regarding interpersonal relationships. Society frequently attempts to categorize individuals by their professional titles, political alignments, and public milestones. Gillette’s memoir argues that our most vital human connections operate outside these official metrics. An "old friend" is defined not by shared résumés, but by shared vulnerabilities, midnight phone calls, mutual literary obsessions, and the unrecorded kindnesses that sustain us through life’s systemic transitions.
Future Outlook: The Permanence of Memory in Digital and Print Lit
As contemporary literature continues to navigate the hybrid spaces between print journals and digital-first anthologies like BLAST, essays like Old Friends: A Memoir point toward the future of personal narrative. The digital medium allows for immediate, expansive distribution of essays that capture the texture of lived experience without the rigid word-count constraints of legacy publishing models.
For readers and scholars of contemporary memoir, Jane Gillette’s work offers a blueprint for how to write about aging, loss, and friendship without sentimentality or cliché. By embracing the flaws of memory—acknowledging moments where friends dispute whether a specific event actually happened—Gillette underscores a profound truth: memory is not a recording device, but an act of creative preservation.
As Gillette aptly concludes in her memoir, Steve is likely "up there in Heaven making new Old Friends." For the literary community, Old Friends ensures that the memory of Steve—and the exquisite, unclassifiable bond he shared with his longtime confidant—remains permanently etched in the annals of contemporary American prose.
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