Complex and authentic, Jeremy Gordon’s See Friendship challenges the heart and mind with truths about friendship and memory.
Jacob Goldberg, a 30-something culture writer for a website of medium renown, is trying to stay relevant in the increasingly competitive media world. While brainstorming ideas for a podcast series, Jacob learns new details about the unexpected death of Seth Terry, one of his best friends from high school. Shocked by the revelation that Seth overdosed, Jacob fixates on the events leading up to the well-liked Seth’s death, which he decides to make the subject of his podcast. Jacob pieces together a narrative through interviews with former classmates, investigating what part Lee—Seth’s friend and drug dealer—played in Seth’s demise.
See Friendship is a nuanced, layered story. In his interviews, Jacob delves into the shared past of all Seth’s former acquaintances, unearthing the complexities of those relationships, as well as Jacob’s own demons and regrets. Through Jacob’s eyes, readers also glimpse the world of journalism, witnessing the evolution of his work on the story from a professional project about the legacy of a dead classmate into a personal reckoning. Jacob’s concerns are relatable, as he balances the demands of his precarious career with the desire to treat his friend’s story with humanity.
A thought-provoking and stirring exploration of the lasting impact of connection, See Friendship may resonate with those who enjoyed The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes. Gordon’s writing is both sensitive and grounded, skillfully capturing the complex emotional responses to loss through keen and evocative observations. He masterfully explores the capricious nature of memory—how certain moments resurface with ease, while others remain elusive—revealing the fluid, and often unreliable, ways we process the past.
