I agreed with the title, they should not be friends but not for the reasons the author seems to think.

Maxey is an interesting, accepting, loving larger-than-life character. I enjoyed reading about his interesting and passionate life quite a bit. However, I never got a great feel for the author at all. What did he think? We know what he told people but were these his actual feelings? Was he waiting for gay marriage to be legal nationwide or did he just not want to be married for a long time? I never could tell.

Other parts of his life were also very vague. What did he do all day during all these post-college years? It felt very cold and he seemed like a clueless, thoughtless person in general. Maxey, however, was very warm and giving and it made me wonder why he’d want to be friends with the author.

I’m morbidly curious about the author’s other memoir about his mother. Does it share more about the author? Some of the reviews of it raised some of the same issues I found in this book. He is still a mystery to me and my impressions just aren’t very positive. So odd to write multiple memoirs and not talk about yourself in any substantive way.