Jeremy in We Burned So Bright: A Character Analysis

Overview

Jeremy is the absent son at the emotional core of TJ Klune’s novel We Burned So Bright. Adopted at age seven by the gay couple Don and Rodney, he grows into a volatile teenager and young adult, dying by suicide at twenty-eight. Although he never appears in the present-day narrative, his memory—carried as ashes in a vial—shapes every mile of Don and Rodney’s final road trip. Jeremy is characterized through their recollections: a child of deep trauma, instability, and moments of bright joy, caught in a cycle of mental illness that no amount of love could break.

Plot Role

Jeremy functions as the couple’s unspoken destination. Don and Rodney learn of the black hole’s approach and immediately decide to travel from Maine to Washington to see him, only to reveal later that Jeremy is already dead. The journey thus becomes a pilgrimage to spread the last of his ashes at the fire watchtower where Jeremy once felt happiest. Every encounter along the road—the family fleeing to Minnesota, the queer women at Swan Lake, the hermit Jerri—reinforces the themes of connection and loss that Jeremy embodies. The climax of the novel occurs atop that swaying tower, where the couple finally releases the final vial and faces the end together.

Motivations and Traits Shown Through Actions

Jeremy’s motivations are drawn from a turbulent inner life. The novel presents evidence of oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) and possible schizophrenia; he hears voices and sees shadows others cannot. His actions oscillate between loving engagement and violent outbursts. As a child, he builds block towers and asks his dads for waffles with peanut butter, but he also kicks holes in walls and hits caregivers. As a teen, he steals from Don and Rodney, uses drugs, and hurls homophobic slurs. Yet his final suicide note reads, “Tell my dads I love them”—a plea that reveals his enduring attachment despite the pain he caused and felt. His actions are driven not by malice but by a brain “like a dying star,” as the text suggests, making him a tragic figure of mental illness rather than a villain.

Chronological Arc

Jeremy’s arc unfolds in flashbacks across Chapter 7 (the book’s eighth chapter). Key points:

• Adoption at 7: After months of visits, Don and Rodney take him into their home. He struggles with trust and anger.
• Childhood highs and lows: Periods of calm and joy (family road trips, reading Where the Wild Things Are) shattered by meltdowns, medication resistance, and property damage.
• Teenage escalation: At fourteen he punches Rodney. He stops taking medication, steals, and disappears for months. He calls his parents “queers” and says they aren’t his real fathers.
• Age 26 attack: Don finds Jeremy shooting up; Jeremy chokes Don and slams his head against a wall. Don and Rodney change the locks.
• Final contact: Jeremy calls at 33, saying he wants to return to the fire lookout tower. A few weeks later, a ranger finds him dead of an overdose in his tent.
• Posthumous legacy: Don and Rodney spread his ashes at seven locations over years, keeping the last vial. At the tower, the ash briefly forms a smiling face before the fire wave consumes everything.

Relationships

With Don and Rodney: Jeremy’s relationship with his fathers is the novel’s deepest bond, marked by fierce love and devastating fractures. Don and Rodney never stop caring for him, even after the attack. They travel the country to scatter his remains, and Rodney admits he would “do it all over again” even knowing the outcome. The slash hurts Jeremy feels at being raised by two gay men in a homophobic world—he internalizes slurs and uses them back—complicates the relationship but never extinguishes the underlying attachment.

With his own identity: Jeremy struggles to accept himself. His mental illness makes him feel “awful” and undeserving; he hears voices that tell him he is bad. The novel leaves open whether his use of homophobic language reflects genuine prejudice or a weaponized defense against his own fears, but the text leans toward the latter—a boy who learned that “queer” was an insult and turned it on the people who loved him.

Key Decisions and Consequences

The most consequential choice is Jeremy’s long pattern of refusing help. The novel does not blame him; instead it frames his illness as “rotten, miserable luck.” His suicide is the final, tragic decision that hollows out his dads’ lives until the apocalypse gives them a reason to finish what they started.

Theme and Symbol Connections

Love and grief: Jeremy is the embodiment of both. Don and Rodney’s love for him never dies, but neither does their grief. The vial of ashes is a literal vessel of sorrow carried through the story.

Family and estrangement: Jeremy’s adoption and subsequent alienation mirror the novel’s question of what makes a family. The couple’s choice to adopt a troubled child—and their inability to save him—tests the meaning of parenthood.

Apocalyptic acceptance: Jeremy’s death teaches Don and Rodney that some endings cannot be prevented. The end of the world becomes a permission to release the last of his ashes and accept their own end.

Queer resilience and history: Jeremy’s experience as the son of gay parents in a hostile era echoes the queer survival stories shared by Amy and Becca. The slurs he learned are part of a larger history of violence and erasure, yet his dads choose to remember the fire he burned with, not the darkness.

Fate versus choice: Jeremy’s life is presented as a series of choices constrained by biology and circumstance. The novel asks whether his fate was inevitable or whether different decisions—by him, by his parents, by society—could have changed the outcome. The ash smile at the tower is left ambiguous: a trick of the light or a sign that, in the final moment, something of Jeremy chose to say goodbye.

5 Questions and Answers

1. Why did Jeremy die by suicide?
The text suggests Jeremy suffered from untreated or inadequately treated mental illness, including possible schizophrenia and severe depression. In his suicide note, he writes that he hears and sees things that tell him he is awful and undeserving. He says, “It’s so hard being human.” His death by overdose is presented as a tragic conclusion to a life of inner torment.

2. Did Jeremy love his dads?
Yes. Despite the violence and estrangement, his final words are “Tell my dads I love them.” The novel makes clear that his anger and slurs were symptoms of his illness and trauma, not a lack of love. Don and Rodney believe this, and the narrative supports it.

3. Why do Don and Rodney keep one vial of Jeremy’s ashes for so long?
They could not bear to let go completely. Spreading the last of his ashes would mean accepting that Jeremy is truly gone. Keeping the vial allowed them to pretend he was still away, traveling, healthy, and happy. The apocalypse forces them to finish the act.

4. What does the smiling face in the ash cloud mean?
The narrative does not give a definitive answer. It is described as a possible “trick of the light” or “wish fulfilled.” Rodney and Don whisper “Jeremy?” and the smile widens before dissipating. It can be interpreted as a moment of spiritual communion, a final gift from a dying universe, or simply the mind’s need to see meaning in chaos. The ambiguity is intentional.

5. Could Jeremy’s fate have been different?
The novel suggests maybe, but does not claim certainty. Don and Rodney repeatedly wonder if they could have done more. Rodney says they “did their best” and that it “wasn’t good enough.” Jeremy’s doctors, medications, and the social systems in place all failed him. Yet the book also acknowledges that mental illness can be intractable. The question remains open, a part of the grief.