Novelist Harker Jones is chatting with me today about his LGBTQ novel, Until September.
Bio:
Harker Jones is the author of the Amazon #1 best-selling love story Until September and five screenplays, which he is currently pitching to producers. His short thrillers “Cole & Colette” and “One-Hit Wonder” have been accepted into more than 60 film festivals combined, garnering several awards. He was managing editor of “Out” magazine for seven years and is a member of both the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle and Mensa.
Welcome, Harker. Please tell us about your current release.
Until September is a love story about a boy who falls in love with another boy in the summer of 1966, setting off a series of consequences that changes their lives forever. Ninety-six percent of the story takes place over the course of that summer on an island where the boys are vacationing. It’s a different time so despite the fact that they are privileged, coming from wealthy families, their lives are not perfect. It isn’t a romance novel; it’s not fantasy. There are real stakes, which I think throws some people off as they expect something frothy and this is more like “Atonement” and “Call Me By Your Name” and “Brokeback Mountain.”
What inspired you to write this book?
I was suffering an unrequited crush on a boy who worked at the Coach store in the Briarwood mall in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The book isn’t about him, of course, just inspired by those feelings. He has no idea it even exists. He probably doesn’t even remember me! He was very nice for a bit then turned into a jerk (to be kind). So, in the end, he doesn’t need to know! Just kidding, of course. I have toyed with the idea of telling him, but I haven’t pulled that trigger yet. No matter what, though, I will always appreciate him for stirring those feelings of romance in me so that I could create “Until September.” The book is far more valuable than a college fling!
Excerpt from Until September by Harker Jones:
I was so young when it all began that the blame hardly feels like mine. But no matter how minor a part I played, mine was the most pivotal. In the end, it was a decision I made.
So though there are many stories I tell, this is the one I’ve never shared. I can’t bear to think about it, except in my most submerged recesses, releasing it in the deep deep dark of night, when it will not be evaded.
How many years would you have to go back to change your destiny? That question plagues me. Because if I can think in terms of destiny, I can afford myself a slight reprieve, a misguided waft of air in a stagnant, decaying well. If I can think in terms of destiny, I can believe that I did what I did because I had no option. It had been predetermined and I’d only acted out my role.
But destiny is the weak man’s conception. To believe in destiny is to take no responsibility for your choices.
And I won’t allow myself the luxury.
I learned a little from Trent that summer, but not enough to open the eyes of a self-involved, spoiled, jealous 17-year-old. Then, later, years later, I ran into Dana. We had drinks, both of us smoking too much, talking too much, drinking too much, wondering if the other was glossing things over. I saw a subtle loneliness in her eyes that I recognized only because it was in mine, too. She knew. And she knew that I knew. It’s scary, that loneliness, because you want so much to have someone alleviate it, yet the only people who can are those who know it, too. And when you find one of those people you’re terrified that that person can see through your carefully wrought facade, and you realize you’re naked in front of a virtual stranger, so you just run.
Run.
I learned most of it from Kyle. The details. The things I couldn’t have known. Those things pursue me. Those and the things Dana told me happened after. After I passed out of the picture. I was able to spend some uncomfortable but pleasant time with her until she told me. That was when I had to flee. I had to escape. That was when the running became all.
I’m still running.
Just as Kyle is still chasing.
Neither of us will succeed—me in escaping or Kyle in capturing.
We know this.
We don’t stop.
Someone once told me that tears water the soul. I do not believe this. If it were true, my soul
would be fertile and verdant. But it is stunted and gnarled and withered and cracked. Which is something I could live with.
If Kyle’s had been spared.
Kyle would say this is Jack’s story. But, just as this is the only story I can never share, this is the only one Kyle will ever be able to tell.
So I think of this as Kyle’s story.
What exciting project are you working on next?
I’ve been focusing on screenwriting since finishing Until September. I have five solid scripts and four that need some work. My strongest include a slasher called Never Have I Ever, in which eight teenagers find themselves caught up in a deadly game of Never Have I Ever so the school bully sets out to find out who’s playing the prank in hopes of redeeming his past … and staying alive; a mind-bending thriller called The Alexandrite Ring, in which a successful architect’s search for his husband’s misplaced wedding ring is interrupted by home invaders, upending his life and all he knows to be true until he starts to question his identity; and a raucous comedy called Green Means Go! in which a female journalist sues a tone-deaf pop star for lip-syncing, inadvertently igniting a firestorm of controversy that threatens her friendships, her love life and her career. I have also adapted Until September into a limited series, which I am pitching along with the features. So far the response has been quite positive!
When did you first consider yourself a writer?
Honestly, I didn’t really consider myself a writer until maybe the last 10 years or so. Which is recent considering I started when I was 13! I don’t know why it took so long. A couple of years ago I went through countless boxes I’d stashed away and was stunned at the reams and reams and stacks and stacks of writings I had saved. Plays and poems and screenplays and fiction and essays. It was astonishing. I’ve been an editor for so long I told a friend a while back that I didn’t think of myself as a writer, I thought of myself as an editor. And she said, I think of you as a writer because you have to be a good writer to be able to edit. I don’t know if that’s necessarily true, but I got what she meant!
Do you write full-time? If so, what’s your workday like? If not, what do you do other than write and how do you find time to write?
I edit for my day job but I have a lot of energy and can keep a ton of balls in the air at the same time, so that allows me to get a lot done during my free time. I can input notes from a writers’ group into a script, coordinate illustrations for a children’s book, send query letters, follow up with people I met at an event, work on a screenplay, set up a promotion for “Until September,” submit a song to a contest, and work on a theater review all in one night. And still have time to play with the cat, spend time with my partner and watch a horror movie!
What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?
Besides my juggling skills mentioned in the previous answer, I think variety is probably my quirk. I wrote a bleak love story and some rom-coms and a slasher movie and some children’s books and a hallucinatory thriller. I have a lot of different tastes and the stories I want to tell can’t always be contained within the same genre or style. The spice of life and all that!
As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
Like many I wanted to be a movie star. I don’t aspire to that anymore, but I would still like to be killed in a slasher movie! And I wouldn’t say no to being a pop star. A boy’s gotta have a dream!
Anything additional you want to share with the readers?
It’s corny, but it’s true: Life is short. If you want to write, do it. If you want to design houses, do it. If you want to be a train conductor, do it. You’ll regret not trying more than failing. And you never know—you just might succeed.
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