Jan Gay's and the Male Doctor
Though Jan Gay is a devoted feminist, and her entire body of work is deeply bound up in resisting and overthrowing the patriarchal hegemony, her research could only be published if it was co-signed by a male physician. She knew that her research would only ever be published with a male doctor's name on it, even though its success is intrinsically tied to it being authored by a lesbian woman. There is a cruel irony in this reality: even for Jan, who raised herself and had no patriarch, there were certain limitations within the patriarchal society that could not be overcome.
Jan's Father's Absence
Jan Gay's father is an ironic figure: the proclaimed "hobo doctor," who traveled the country spreading free-love messages, advocating for models of community care within unhoused populations, was almost entirely absent from his own daughter's life. While her father had countless stories of people he helped, and communities he showed up for, accruing a kind of folkloric mythos around him, the care for his daughter only extended as far as a few letters a year. For all that he did for other people, he essentially neglected his own daughter.
Juan's Fading Interest
It seems that Juan has been waiting desperately for nene to arrive at the Palace and take up the project about Jan Gay; there is an urgency to the project, an urgency to pass it along before Juan dies. But then, quite unexpectedly, almost as soon as Juan gives the project to nene, he loses interest in it. It is as if, once nene got to the Palace and made his promise to complete the project, Juan had no interest in telling him anything more about it. As soon as nene gets excited about it, Juan no longer wants to be part of it.
The Palace
The Palace, which evokes the austerity of kings and queens, is in reality nothing more than a crumbling old residence in the middle of the desert, filled with people who could not be further from the epicenter of society.
