Jeremy Gordon On Grief, Connection, And His Novel ‘See Friendship’

A few weeks ago, I was going through the thousand-odd people I follow on one social media site in an effort to ease my transition onto another, when I noticed that I was still following the accounts of several people who were dead. I tabbed over to their pages, knowing I would not see anything profound or overwhelming, merely the mundane thoughts they'd had in 2013, 2017, or 2024, preserved in amber as long as the platform clings to life. The contrast between ephemerality and permanence was jarring. I didn't know whether it felt more respectful to continue following them or let them go. This precise, hypermodern dissonance is one of the subjects of Jeremy Gordon's forthcoming novel, See Friendship. Gordon's book tells the story of Jacob, a somewhat adrift digital-media drone who needs to create something substantial to keep his career going. Once he learns that a close high school friend named Seth did not die in his sleep as he was told, but under stranger and more tragic circumstances, he decides to create a narrative podcast investigating the death.