Book Review: What Our Friends Left Behind: Grief and Laughter in a Pandemic

What Our Friends Left Behind: Grief and Laughter in a Pandemic, by Victoria Noe, King Company Publishing, September 2023, Hardcover, paperback and e-book, 213 pages

Reviewed by Marcie Hill

What Our Friends Left Behind: Grief and Laughter in a Pandemic by Victoria Noe “is for those of us who still struggle with ways to grieve and honor friends who died…during the pandemic.” As someone who didn’t experience loss during the pandemic, the book introduced me to people in professions I didn’t think about during the pandemic and how they were impacted by it. 

Like many people, I was aware of first responders, health care workers, nursing home workers and other “essential workers” because of daily news reports. I never considered the mental and emotional toll of these people, many of whom served other people. Noe includes experiences of religious leaders, first responders, health care workers, theater performers, last responders and members of the HIV/AIDS community who lost friends, and she shows how they attempted to grieve during the pandemic. 

Noe notes that not all deaths during the pandemic were COVID-related. Existing health issues, suicides and drug overdoses were added to the fatality count. Also, friends were not lost to death only. Individuals discovered that some friends did not share their values, while other friends did not attempt to keep in touch with those who tried to connect with them. 

While I thought death was the worst part of the COVID-19 crises, Noe makes it clear that I was wrong. Not being able to visit or hug loved ones during the pandemic was, for many, worse than death. So was not being able to say good-bye the way they wanted because of in-person gathering restrictions and social distancing requirements.  

What Our Friends Left Behind shared statistics and stories that reveal how bad policies, practices and policing are in the United States. Racism, discrimination and disparities in healthcare and education were known to exist, but COVID-19 dramatized how these inequities affected lives and life expectancies. 

The statistics cited by Noe made me ask a series of questions.  How many people would still be alive if the pandemic had not been politicized? How many people died from COVID-19 prior to March 2020?  How many reported deaths were COVID-related? How many reported deaths were not COVID-related but were documented as such? Would people have been able to grieve and properly honor their friends in person if mask mandates were implemented sooner? Who determined which workers were “essential”? 

Noe is transparent about her own grief and need for help. Through What Our Friends Left Behind, she encourages people to grieve today and get professional help if needed. There is no time limit to grieving and healing. 

While the book is a good read, I did not fully understand the subtitle: “Grief and Laughter in a Pandemic.” I empathized with the grief based on the stories presented, but I didn’t feel laughter. Unless the laughter was in the description of the personalities of the people who were lost. What Our Friends Left Behind: Grief and Laughter in a Pandemic is recommended for people who are still grieving losses from the pandemic and would like to heal.