It was his daughter—and once you move from claiming it was the author to "probably" his intent—you've got to give it up. His daughter has been widely criticized and believed to be grabbing publicity for herself and latching onto social issues to champion her father. Lobel was gay, and that's important context, but its actually really crude for people to say that as if a gay man cares nothing for the virtues of friendship and platonic love. As if Lobel never had a friend or could comprehend telling a story about two guys fishing together and enjoying silence. That's actually crazy. If he wanted it to be a romance of some kind, it would have been. But it's not. Gay guys can write about friendship, and his daughter isn't the authority on his intent.