Some personal news

Subjects discussed: My debut novel SEE FRIENDSHIP, out in winter 2025.

Two beasts live inside of me. There’s the beast who’s always thinking about writing, and new things to write, and timelines for writing those new things. And there’s the beast who prefers to read and listen to music and hang out with Jen and my friends. It’s not laziness, or procrastination, or writer’s block. I’m well-organized, a Virgo, a productive little bee. But occasionally, one must sit back. The digital media ecosystem advantages those temperamentally suited to share what’s going on with them at all times — and while I love the dopamine rush, sometimes you just need to relax and focus on something else without the same instant reward. (Except for Twitter; gosh, I love tweeting.)

Last week, I sold my debut novel; the news is official today. It’s called See Friendship, and it’ll be published by Harper Perennial in the winter of 2025. (A hearty thanks to my agents Eloy Bleifuss and Kirby Kim for taking it on, and to my editor Sophia Kaufman for taking it home.) I started writing it in the summer of 2019, during a tumultuous time in my life when my usual writing methods felt limp and insufficient and fiction seemed like the only possible outlet. Nearly four years later, after many revisions and humbling encounters with the threshing machine of modern publishing, I can formally acknowledge it as something that will soon exist as a purchasable product.

There’s so much to say about it, but I’ll save some ammo for the road ahead. What I’ll start with, in the privacy of this public Substack post, is that I was very grateful to have finished it. It’s the longest piece of writing I’ll have ever published, and simply getting to the end — working on it every day, and never once doubting that I should keep going — was an instructive process. I never had much formal writing instruction beyond “doing it,” but you can do it poorly and inefficiently and learn nothing from that over many years until one day, something clicks. Of course, I’m extraordinarily happy that it will be something that other people can read without needing me to email them a PDF, but even if I hadn’t sold it — a very real possibility — I would’ve come away thinking, “Oh, that’s how it’s supposed to be.”

What is it about? Here’s Publishers Marketplace:

What I’ll add is that while that parts of it are very sad, parts of it are very funny — an important commingling. Some books that were at the forefront of my mind as I wrote it: Eve Babitz’s Black Swans, Rachel Cusk’s Outline, Javier Marias’ Your Face Tomorrow trilogy. The tone of it is different from my nonfiction, but it’s not unrelated. I like to be serious, and I like to have fun. If you’ve ever read my writing and thought to yourself, “I dig the way this guy goes about it,” I think you’ll enjoy this. (And, if you are just discovering that I exist, here are some recent clips I’m proud of.)

I don’t think you’ll feel like a sucker who got tricked into dropping $15 at Bookshop.org. After reading my draft from beginning to end somewhere between 46 and 97 times, I continue to think: “You know what? Honestly? Despite all my worrying otherwise? Despite the agita, the late-night and early-morning texts, the many notes I’ve left to myself that basically amount to ‘write the non-shitty version’? This is pretty good.” It took a lot of work to get there, but I did it for you.

Three more comparison points, emotionally speaking:

One more thing: I got the news that I’d sold it right as I was purchasing my wedding band, because Jen and I are getting married on June 4. Pretty excellent timing.

Other professional stuff

I’m always meaning to mention recent writing here, but I also always want to attach it to a real post, and so when the real post doesn’t happen — usually because of the aforementioned “hanging out” that I mentioned up top — “recent writing” becomes six months ago. That said: I recently started a temporary editing job at The Atlantic, filling in for a senior editor on the culture team who’s going on book leave. If you want to get in touch, shoot me a line at jgordon@theatlantic.com

For The New York Times, I interviewed Seal about ChatGPT and love; I also moderated a chat between Steve Lacy and Raphael Saadiq about their trajectories through the music industry. A funny bit that was cut for space: Asked for what advice he'd give to a young artist, Saadiq said — in a joking, but completely serious way — “if you’re going to get a manager, just make sure they have a first name and a last name.” Pretty good advice; do not sign away your royalties to Broadway Jack.

For The Nation, I wrote about Chuck Klosterman and his latest book The Nineties. The book came out last winter, but you know what? I read very slowly, sorry.

For Pitchfork, I wrote a Sunday Review about The Byrds and their masterpiece album The Notorious Byrd Brothers. Incredible music, truly. Listen when it’s warm out.