J. R. Thornton was born in London and graduated from Harvard College in 2014, where he studied history, English, and Chinese.  He later competed for Harvard as an internationally ranked junior tennis player on the men’s professional circuit. 

Shortly after graduating from Harvard, J. R. published his first novel, Beautiful Country, loosely inspired by experiences he had living in Beijing as a teenager. The novel became a best-seller in China, and the film rights were subsequently purchased by WME/IMG.

J. R. returned to China in 2016 as a member of the inaugural class of Schwarzman Scholars, earning an M.A. from Tsinghua University. He lives in Milan, where he works for AC Milan. Lucien is his second novel. 

Lucien is described as an incendiary literary work about a gifted artist on financial aid at Harvard who falls victim to the manipulative control of his wealthy, enigmatic roommate. Drawing inspiration from the true crime stories of Christian Gerhartsreiter (a.k.a. “Clark Rockefeller”) and Adam Wheeler, Lucien is an immensely entertaining novel that will appeal to fans of The Secret History, The Incendiaries, The Talented Mr. Ripley, and Saltburn. This is complicated, toxic friendship and dark academia at its best.

We talk about how he got started writing, lessons learned playing professional tennis, how he got his first agent, his writing routine, becoming immersed in his novel while writing it, maintaining discipline, writing in alternate places, where the idea for Lucien came from, developing the main character, publuishing, books and authors we love, cultivating creativity and curiosity, writing a screenplay, advice for writers, time travel, and we discuss I highlights I took from the book.