JR Thornton (3:57)

Lucienne. Yeah, perfect.

Zibby Owens (3:58)

Perfect. Great. Well, congratulations. What a great book. This is like the Great Gatsby meets the Thomas Crown Affair meets, I don't know, I just loved it. I felt like I just watched the whole movie of it.

JR Thornton (4:11)

Amazing. Thank you. That's super kind words. I appreciate it.

Zibby Owens (4:14)

Okay, can we just start by discussing this cover situation? So the COVID has changed from the last one. For those listening, I'm holding up two different covers. The one that is coming out soon is this bright red background with sort of the bottom cut off bust of a, you know, like a sculpture. And the other one is a man staring at a photo in what looks like, you know, a curtained beautiful room. And anyway, just wondering because it rarely happens that you change at this point. So what happened?

JR Thornton (4:46)

Totally. So yeah, a bit of a funny story, but the first cover was the art gallery kind of background that one. So that was actually the COVID that the publisher in China came out with and at first Harper Collins wanted to use the same one and then they ran into a copyright issue and so it sort of at this point decided to switch. But I actually love them both. So it's. Yeah, I think that the new one's super cool as well. So it worked out.

Zibby Owens (5:14)

But yeah, no, they're Both great, intriguing and interesting. Okay, so talk a little bit about the book. What's it about?

JR Thornton (5:22)

Yes. So Lucien is, I call it a sort of a campus thriller about two students at Harvard to get mixed up in scheme to sell fake art. The narrator and main character, Atlas, is a super talented artist from a less privileged background who arrives at Harvard, won a full scholarship. And at Harvard he meets his freshman year roommate, Lucien as this sort of consummate golden boy, very charming, handsome, from a wealthy family, kind of good at everything. And Alice is sort of in awe of this guy. And over the course of the book, he effectively becomes manipulated by Lucien into going along with the scheme to sell fake art. And then it escalates, obviously. But so, yeah, I'd say it's. It's a novel about identity, ambition, reinvention, but hopefully a fun read.

Zibby Owens (6:11)

Yes, well, it's definitely a fun read. Atlas is not even his real name. He gets to campus, he's like, he meets this really handsome put together guy who's immediately like, okay, we're changing your name. And that sets the stage. He's like, we're doing what? Are you kidding? And I love Atlas background too. I mean, you paint a really realistic portrait. He's lost his father at a young age. He's been raised by a single mother with a mentor who has helped his artistic career the whole time and has so much to lose. He has so much riding on this college experience and can't imagine, you know, anything jeopardizing that. And then you have this counterbalance at Harvard. The guy who's like, it feels like he's owed this experience there. And what happens when you put those together and who has power when. And it was really kind of a fascinating dynamic and a great look at male friendship at a time where everyone is trying to figure out who they are.

JR Thornton (7:12)

Yeah, absolutely. I think that that question of figuring out who you are and deciding who you want to be is something that's at the heart of the novel. And I think that's something that is like a really universal experience for kids that age. You know, university is a chance to start over, to become someone new and to kind of shed the identity you. You had in high school. And it's something I definitely witnessed a lot with friends at university. Sort of people trying on different identities, dressed in different ways and figuring out who they wanted to be. So. So that is sort of taken to the extreme by, by, by this novel, but I thought it was. It taps into something that I think is universal.

Zibby Owens (7:47)

Yeah, I remember in High school. At one point, I was so. I was always so annoyed at my nickname because I had to keep spelling it all the time. And it was just, like, such pain. And I was like, well, maybe I'll go to college and I'll be Elizabeth for the first time, and won't that be so cool? And, of course, like, no.

JR Thornton (8:02)

Did you try?

Zibby Owens (8:04)

I didn't even try. Like, half my high school went to college with me, so it's, like, didn't work at some point, but I wasn't gonna reinvent myself. But I did toy with the idea of changing. Changing back my name. But I'm glad I kept it. It's all good.

JR Thornton (8:17)

Fortunate.

Zibby Owens (8:18)

Tell me about your college experience and how it tracked. Like, which pieces of this do you feel you experienced or saw in others? Or how closely does it align? Just comp. Contrast.

JR Thornton (8:34)

Yeah, I guess. I guess the disclaimer up front. I was not involved in art crime when I was at university. So not. Not autobiographical, but maybe this is your

Zibby Owens (8:42)

subtle way of admitting it without getting in trouble, you know, just getting it off your chest. It's okay. We'll take it.

JR Thornton (8:48)

No, but I think that, yeah, after I graduated, I. I. Yeah, I wanted to write a novel that set at Harvard because I thought it was a world that is very unique, and it's sort of a bubble unto itself. It's a closed world, but one I felt at that point I understood super well. And so I tried to take parts of my experience and bring in. I just thought it was very rich background for a story. And so that's sort of why I set it there. And there's aspects that are. I experience aspects that are dialed up and down for the sake of the story. But, yeah, I tried to give it an authentic feel of the campus world.

Zibby Owens (9:22)

Well, one of the things I feel like you did particularly well is getting to the heart of who people are when put in really difficult situations. Right. So you're kind of asking the reader, like, okay, we see how we got to this point. What would I do? I'm not sure, because there are allegiances to. And I don't want to give things away, but there are some moments where it's like, Atlas really tries to stick to his principles, and he knows he does have a good sense of self, and yet he also wants to be a loyal friend, and he doesn't want to, you know, come off as, you know, not grateful for all the things that Lucien had given him. And. And so, like, what do you do? And how do you navigate these really Complicated situations. And that's the best when you're like, I don't. I don't know. Could I do this? Could, like. And how did he come up with this solution? And what would I have done? Right. Were you ever asking yourself, like, what would I have done in this situation?

JR Thornton (10:25)

Yeah, definitely. And I think that that also gets to the heart of the whole sort of manipulation dynamic. And it's taking advantage of gray areas and where you don't quite have enough information to call the other person out. And so you want to believe them, and then they tap into a sense of guilt or loyalty or whatever push and pull sort of thing they can feel is working. And so I tried to sort of capture that dynamic as well, but it's difficult. And I think that, yeah, I think that the character is genuinely torn at those moments, and you try to put yourself in their shoes, but it's always impossible. Unless it's you.

Zibby Owens (11:01)

Who do you see Lucien being played by in the movie version of this?

JR Thornton (11:06)

That's a good question. Yeah, I don't know. I thought about it for a while. Had Saltburn knocked him out? I would have said Jacob Elordi, but,

Zibby Owens (11:13)

yeah, I was gonna say that.

JR Thornton (11:16)

Yeah. So that. I don't. I don't think you want to do the same character twice, but he would have been great for it.

Zibby Owens (11:22)

Yeah. I was literally just thinking. We just saw him on, like, the Actors SAG Actors Awards. My husband's like, you know, he's like the biggest deal ever. And I was like, okay, okay, okay, fine. Okay, fine. I feel like you could do a whole shop of all the clothes referenced in this book, too. Like, you could very much be like, here's how to dress here. Because there's so much in the details of the book with the shirts and the, you know, all the things. And like, the scene where he makes so much fun of Atlas for his JCPenney shirt and, like, the Harvard tie. And he's like, what even is this? What is JCPenney? You know, and he was so embarrassed. He's like, I'm not even gonna go out. And yet you contrast it with, like, all of these, you know, Eton worthy outfits. I don't know. I found it visually interesting.

JR Thornton (12:09)

Yeah, it's something I thought a lot about. Cause I think one aspect is changing the name. And even as Alice does, and it's sort of the first step of adopting the identity, but then there's also the physical aspect. And I read a lot of stories about, you know, true crime stories about imposters and Manipulators and con men and stuff, and those are things that they pay attention to because it helps tell the story of this identity that you're. You're trying to present. And so. And then also the hard thing is deciding how good should that facade be? Should it be 100% convincing? 95. You know, should there be holes in it? And so I think that that was something. I sort of tried to get the balance right.

Zibby Owens (12:50)

Amazing. Well, and also, your writing style is so beautiful. And I read A Beautiful Country. I read that and loved it as well as I think, you know, but take us from you at Harvard, your professional tennis into that. And you were a Schwarzman Scholar, you know. Did you know that's my dad?

JR Thornton (13:06)

Yeah, I. I did. Yeah.

Zibby Owens (13:08)

Okay.

JR Thornton (13:08)

Okay. Yeah.

Zibby Owens (13:10)

So cool. I'm like, are you going to the reunion?

JR Thornton (13:13)

I'm hoping to. Yeah. It's getting busy now with the book coming out, but I have my tickets booked and stuff, so. Planning on it, but looking forward to that. Can't believe it's been 10 years. It's just crazy, but so crazy.

Zibby Owens (13:24)

Yeah, I'm planning on being there, too, so maybe I'll see you there.

JR Thornton (13:27)

Amazing. Okay, great. That'll be great.

Zibby Owens (13:29)

Assuming that the war doesn't derail.

JR Thornton (13:31)

True.

Zibby Owens (13:32)

We'll see what happens. Okay, so take us through your career and how you even got to Harvard. Just give everybody a little background on you.

JR Thornton (13:42)

Sure. So. I guess so. I was born in London, lived there till I was 12. Parents American, so we moved back to the States at that point. I spent a year living in China when I was 14, and I was a good tennis player at the time, so I spent a big chunk of that year training with the Chinese junior national tennis team in Beijing. And those kind of experiences were the sort of foundation for what became my first novel. And I guess also I read a ton as a child, which I think is where the love of writing comes from. My mother's a writer, so she was handing me books from a super young age. And no video games, no TV in the house. So my three options were reading, playing sports, or score, basically. So I did a lot of reading. And, yeah, I began writing more seriously in high school. Did all the creative writing courses that my school offered and finished sort of the most advanced one. Tried to take it again, and school told me that you can't take it a second time. But luckily I had an English teacher who said, why don't you try writing a novel as an independent study, and I'll sponsor you for it. You can do it with me. To me, that sounded like a lot of work at age 18 or whatever it was. So I was skeptical initially. And he told me, if you turn in a chapter a month, they'll give you an A for the course. I was like, deal. And that was sort of the first job that Beautiful country came out of. That at that point, I really had no idea what I was doing. So I went away to Harvard, studied writing there under Brett Johnston and Amy Hempel and learned, you know, how to write at a craft level and eventually returned to Beautiful country, rewrote the whole thing after I graduated. And then that, yeah, it was my first novel. And simultaneously had kept up tennis through the first two years of played two years at Harvard and then quit at that point to focus on writing basically. So wow.

Zibby Owens (15:28)

And how did you even come up with this idea? Was there somebody you always wondered about at school, like, is that guy for real?

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JR Thornton (16:46)

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Zibby Owens (17:05)

Gatorade lowers sugar.

JR Thornton (17:07)

Is it in you? Now available nationwide. It's funny. So I feel like from a young age. I love stories about imposters and illusionists. And I love the Count of Monte Cristo. Loves Great Gatsby Catch me if you can. So there's something about that type of story that was appealing to me. And then when I was, I guess the summer before I got to Harvard or that, that sort of six month period, there was an incident of a senior at Harvard who was a finalist to the Rhodes Scholarship, who had this incredible resume on paper, you know, to transfer from mit, had straight A's, had co authored a bunch of books with famous professors, could speak five or six languages like ancient Persian, ancient Greek, and was about to graduate with a 4.0. And someone on the Rose committee read his essay, realized that it was word for word plagiarized. And then they looked into his background and realized that everything was invented. And so that story really stuck with me because I thought it was so interesting that he almost graduated and had he not gone for this final sort of ultimate accolade that he would have, and also that he was able to get that far without anybody sort of realizing that he didn't belong there or something. And I thought there was a cool parallel there to the idea of a fake painting. And so that's sort of where those two ideas came together.

Zibby Owens (18:29)

So interesting. Actually, my husband's a movie producer and they have a film they're trying to get off the ground called Imposter, about someone at Stanford who.

JR Thornton (18:37)

Oh, really?

Zibby Owens (18:38)

But it was more. They weren't even enrolled as a student.

JR Thornton (18:42)

Okay. That also happened while I was at Harvard. When you start looking into these stories, they're more common than you think, which

Zibby Owens (18:48)

is a little scary, but, yeah, terrifying. Oh my gosh. Amazing. Well, just talking about craft for a minute because you write so beautifully, even on a sentence level and you paint such a great picture of the environment and the characters and tell me about writing this beautifully. Are you spending like a really long time on each sentence? Do you outline first and go back and then fine tune the sentences? Like how do you navigate between sentence ideas, pacing, all of that?

JR Thornton (19:22)

Yeah, that's a really good question. So I wrote the first draft of this book in like three weeks, but it was a very skeletal draft where I left whole chapters blank because A, there's a lot of research I had to do, which all the art forgery stuff, for example, I had to read a lot of books on. And so I was like, I'll just come back to this stuff. But at least when it gets the end of the first draft. So psychologically I feel that it's not this project, it's never going to end. But then from that point on, the rewriting process was years and years, and so that took a long time. And you take the book as far as you think you can get it, and then you'll show it to people that you trust for their opinions. And then once you sort of have the plot kind of tightly set up, then I went back, and then I did another few passes at the sentence level. I had a period where I was working on the first and last sentences of every chapter, and I literally stuck out. I printed out pages from books, put them on the wall. Chapter openings I liked, and so I was looking at those, and so that was quite, I guess, intentional. But I think it's easy to. When you're writing, you don't want to break the flow by getting too hung up on a single sentence and letting that stop you from finishing a chapter or the scene or whatnot. So I tend to, like, at least try to get something out, and then I'll go back and refine it. But different things work for different people, I guess.

Zibby Owens (20:44)

That's so interesting. I love that. I wrote one novel, and I did the same thing. I went back and I was like, every chapter, first sentence has to be amazing because it matters so much.

JR Thornton (20:54)

It does, completely.

Zibby Owens (20:55)

And it's like, should I keep reading or not? I don't know. I think it's underrated. So that's really cool that you printed all that out on the wall and everything. I love that.

JR Thornton (21:04)

Yeah. It was something that one of my writing teachers at university said was he had us focus also a lot on the first sentence of short stories. He said, the reality is you're gonna send these out to journals. They're gonna get 50,000 short stories. If they don't like the first sentence, they're not gonna read the second sentence. So first sentence has to be good. First paragraph has to be really good. Then the rest of it as well. But those two are key, I think.

Zibby Owens (21:28)

No, it's true. And because sometimes I'll start a thing, and if I'm not taken right away, like, I don't have a lot of time. Like, you know, you have to capture the. You have to capture people's attention. And when I wrote my first novel, like, after business school, I remember, like, a friend of my mom's was like, who was an agent, said, you have her send me the first 10 pages. And I was like, 10 pages? I'm like, but it really gets good on, like, page 75. Why does she only want the first 10? And now I understand, like, if you can't keep people reading after 10 pages. Forget it.

JR Thornton (22:01)

Yeah, it's tough. I think also now, just with how many distractions everyone has, and it's probably even more pronounced than it was in the past, but, yeah, we're doomed. I know, I know.

Zibby Owens (22:15)

Are you working on a new novel now?

JR Thornton (22:16)

I'm not at the moment. After finishing this, I decided to try something new for a bit. So I've been working actually in sports for the last couple years at. EC Milan in Italy. I'm at the offices right now, but I have been thinking a lot. It's giving me a lot of time to think and to plan out a couple of stories in my head. So I have a good plot outline for a sequel to Lucien that I might write one day. But right now, it's tricky to find time. But I miss it, though, so I think it's not too long before I'm back at it.

Zibby Owens (22:51)

Wow. Well, now I'm totally intrigued about the sequel. Wow. Does Grace play a role? I thought, like, she could be a bigger character.

JR Thornton (22:58)

That's interesting. I hadn't thought about that, but I like that idea.

Zibby Owens (23:01)

All right, we'll put her in. I feel like she's. Because she is kind of an accomplice. Like, how did she fall? I don't know. Be an interesting viewpoint. Okay. Well, anyway, congratulations. This was great.

JR Thornton (23:13)

Thank you so much.

Zibby Owens (23:14)

Really beautiful. Well done. And I'm excited to see it come out in the world.

JR Thornton (23:18)

Perfect. Thank you so much and look forward to seeing you hopefully in China.

Zibby Owens (23:21)

You too. Okay, bye. Bye. Thank you for listening to Totally booked with Zibby, formerly Moms don't have time to read books. If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review. Follow me on Instagram, ibbeowens and spread the word. Thanks so much. Oh, and buy the books.

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Zibby Owens (24:50)

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