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Culture critic Jeremy Gordon makes his literary debut with this whip-smart novel about a young man who learns the devastating truth behind his friend's death, propelling him on an odyssey of discovery into the nature of grief in the digital age, the limits of memory, and the meaning of friendship.
Ahead of looming layoffs within the ongoing decimation of media, Jacob Goldberg, a culture writer in New York, knows what will save him: a podcast. Not just any podcast, but something that will demonstrate his singular thoughtfulness in an oversaturated, competitive market. When Jacob learns the true, tragic circumstances behind the mysterious death of Seth, one of his best friends from high school, his world is turned completely upside down. But when the dust settles, he realizes he has an idea worth digging into.
Of course, it's not so simple. Learning the truth—or at least, the beginning of it—sends Jacob spiraling. His increasing obsession ultimately leads him back home to Chicago, where he tracks down Lee, a once up-and-coming musician who probably knew Seth best at the end of his life. As his investigation deepens, Jacob's drive to find out the truth—and whether there's a deeper story to be told about the fault lines of our memories, life and death on the internet, and the people we never forget—grows into a desperation to discover whether it even matters. If not, can he make it?
A poignant and funny novel about grief, loneliness, memory, and the unique existential questions inherent to the digital age, See Friendship introduces a new voice in fiction—a writer known for his pitch-perfect cultural criticism, with a depth of literary talent.
"[An] acerbic if exhausting debut...Gordon's scathing and often funny prose...mostly makes up for his protagonist's stifling self-absorption. Fans of Sam Lipsyte's Homeland ought to take a look." —Publishers Weekly
"A frequently funny meditation on memory and loss." —Kirkus Reviews
"Gordon, a nationally published critic himself, employs his best writing when he uses Jacob to riff on 21st-century cultural matters and during the book's moving final sequence... . A smart and rueful debut that offers a sly critique of the podcast industry and how some shows treat real humans as characters and their pain and insight as mere content. Recommended for readers of Patricia Lockwood and Lauren Oyler." —Library Journal
"Jeremy Gordon's See Friendship is a sharp and affecting meditation on the contours of friendship, the seams of our digital lives, and the elasticity of memory. In prose that's both wickedly funny and deeply impactful, Gordon has written a novel that dazzles and illuminates: from aging, to dying, to living and loving, See Friendship illuminates and explores the impossibility and joy of navigating modern life. It's a literal triumph." —Bryan Washington, author of Memorial and Lot
"It's rare to find a novel about the internet that's as enthralling as my iPhone—not to mention one that is this funny, confident, and genuinely moving. Technology may distort our sense of time, intimacy, and identity, but See Friendship depicts it all with refreshing clarity. I loved it." —Lauren Oyler, author of Fake Accounts
"Jeremy Gordon's See Friendship is a smart, biting meditation on grief and memory. At once a love story of friendship and a picaresque page-turner for the podcast generation, the novel is refreshingly humane in its portrait of the ongoing mystery of loss. See Friendship asks a confounding but inescapable question: Can we ever really know those we hold dear?" —Isle McElroy, author of People Collide
This information about See Friendship was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Jeremy Gordon's writing has appeared in the New York Times, The Nation, Pitchfork, The Atlantic, and GQ. He was born in Chicago, and currently lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Jen. See Friendship is his first novel.
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