Social Distancing

A candid exploration of the implosion of a friendship in the third year of the COVID pandemic.

Ripping off the wig versus throwing off the wig. Hysterical laughter. The celebration of cruelty. The eroticism of brutality. The violence and camp, the violence in camp, the violence.

To flee in sequined dresses. To kiss the blood, to caress the decay, that sudden dance. The crossing and recrossing of the chest. Lip-synching toward and away from justice. Or do I mean feeling. I mean feeling injustice.

Social Distancing candidly explores the implosion of a friendship in the third year of the COVID pandemic, and the ramifications of this loss as it ruptures time.

Using the films of Derek Jarman as a gateway out of emotional overwhelm, Sycamore moves from current-day Seattle to the theaters of the imagination when she was coming of age in San Francisco in the early nineties. Here she explores the very meaning of friendship, and its centrality as a model for queer kinship.

Sycamore’s investigation leads her from the isolation of the COVID pandemic to the trauma of the AIDS crisis and an interrogation of personal and structural abandonment. This is a book that searches for its own form—from the cruising park to the films of Hal Hartley, Nan Goldin’s photos to the overwhelm of everyday survival.

Ultimately Social Distancing offers a searing, original examination of the possibilities of care in an uncaring society and the importance of friendship in queer lives.