Jonathan Hull spent 10 years working as the Jerusalem Bureau Chief for Time magazine. Perhaps that explains his deft evocation of the tragedies of war and emotional loss in LOSING JULIA, his debut novel. Recently our Founder and President, Carol Fitzgerald, got a chance to ask some questions of the man whose words many find to be so enthralling.

BRC: You paint such a sad, lonely and depressing picture of old age. For instance, Patrick's feeling that his son is just calling because he's thinking about him dying: "Old people can sense that, when friends and relatives are calling just to hear a voice that will soon be extinguished or visiting to take one last look because they've got a premonition." What was your source of inspiration about how older people feel? Do you fear old age the way you describe it?

JH: I can’t say I’m looking forward to it. Yet if my portrait of old age seems a bit, how shall we say, disquieting, I don’t mean to suggest that life’s final stage can’t be filled with dignity and purpose. So much depends on the state of one’s health, resources and --- perhaps most importantly --- whether the accumulated past is a source of pride and contentment or bitterness and remorse. Ultimately what I fear more than old age itself is an old age haunted by regrets, which gets back to the central theme of the book and in part explains what motivated me to try writing a novel in the first place.

I didn’t have any particular role model for Patrick but I have spent some time in nursing homes and I don’t think it takes great powers of observation to get the general idea; namely, that there are a lot of other places that most of us would rather hang our hats. Still, I tried to demonstrate that humor remains a formidable defense even in our darkest moments.

BRC: Did you envision this story as a whole in your mind before you wrote it, or did it evolve little by little, with each chapter bringing a new, unforeseen twist?

JH: The first challenge for me was to bring Patrick fully to life because I’m much more concerned with character and atmosphere than plot, and I think that if the main character is vivid and hearty enough, the plot will in some ways take care of itself. Once I began writing I had a general idea of where I was going, of where the conflict would lie, but most of the scenes evolved as I went, often to my surprise and bemusement. I’ve never had much luck outlining in advance because I never quite know what I want to write until I start writing. I liken it to a miner trying through sheer intuition to follow a vein, leaving a considerable pile of broken picks in his wake as he tunnels frantically this way and that.

BRC: Do you think that Patrick and Julia really loved each other, or were they just attracted to each other because of their love for Daniel? Do you think that any person has the capacity to complete another?

JH: I’d prefer to leave it to the reader to judge the depth of Patrick and Julia's relationship. Certainly I tried to show that they were both deeply vulnerable when they met, and also shared the necessary raw chemistry. But to those who find Julia somewhat idealized and thinly drawn I say, of course! Patrick only had a few days with her and we can only know her as a sort of projection of his most treasured memories; memories he is revisiting decades later. Thus he, himself, questions who is better off: those who share love long enough to see which parts inevitably fade or those who lose their love when it is still pristine.

Can one person complete another? When it comes to relationships, I don't think we have a lot to offer unless we are reasonably whole to start. That said, I certainly don’t want to go it alone. I guess I’d put it this way: without each other we are surely lost and even together it’s touch and go at times.

BRC: You developed little dialogue between Julia and Patrick. Was it your intent to force the reader to imagine the love between them based on their shared experiences?

JH: I ascribed to the theory that less is more, believing that readers know from personal experience how quickly and inexplicably we can fall for others, leaving words to play catch-up as we find ourselves like two ships hopelessly entangled in grappling hooks.

BRC: Without giving the ending away, did you debate closing the book the way you did?

JH: Yes, but I settled on it rather quickly because to me it’s where the whole story starts. I conceptualized the book by working backward from the ending.

BRC: There are quotes that punctuate the entire book --- some reflecting the thoughts of soldiers and some just words of wisdom and poignancy. How did your decision to use this particular stylistic device evolve?

JH: I spent months reading letters and diaries of soldiers and I quickly realized that nothing I could write could approach the searing poignancy and bitterness of their words. By sprinkling excerpts throughout the book I hoped to borrow some of their power and immediacy to further anchor the story in the incomprehensibly tragic reality of that era.

BRC: LOSING JULIA has so many beautiful lines, but one of my favorites is: "I see the moon, the moon sees me, the moon sees somebody I'd like to see...God bless the moon and God bless me and God bless somebody I'd like to see." From where did this passage originate?

JH: When I was a child visiting my grandmother she used to sing this to me at night. I believe it’s an old lullaby, the origins of which I’m unaware.

BRC: Your descriptions of World War I and its battles were so well detailed. How did you conduct your research? What made you choose this as your setting for the beginning of the story? Is this a favorite period in history for you?

JH: Again, I did a great deal of reading and I’ve been to places like Verdun and the Somme, but I consciously chose not to go out and interview 100-year-old veterans because I didn’t want to fall back on my journalistic habit of telling other people’s stories.

I’ve long been fascinated by the First World War because I think that in many ways our contemporary sense of alienation and estrangement traces back to what happened then, when the unprecedented horrors of trench warfare made a mockery out of longstanding and vital assumptions that people had about faith and human nature and the benevolence of technology and the inevitability of progress. Never had so many people been faced with the tragic absurdity of humanity; the specter that evolution could come to such a horrific dead end in which some 6,000 men were being slaughtered each day, month after month, year after year. While much attention is rightly paid to the Second World War, I don’t think it can be properly understood without looking back at the seismic changes wrought by the previous war, which set the tone for the entire century. Tragically, the Second World War was really a continuation of unfinished business.

BRC: You have been a journalist for years winning a number of awards. Was the transition from fact to fiction a difficult one? Did your years in Jerusalem, surrounded by the threat of war, help influence your decision to write this book?

JH: Actually, the transition felt quite liberating because I think it’s so much easier to get at the truth with fiction than nonfiction. With fiction you can say and reveal things that we dare not in our day to day lives, and you can step inside other people’s heads, which is where all the good stuff is hidden. As a journalist I could only describe what people said or did, not what they really felt or thought.

The three years I spent covering the Arab-Israeli conflict has inevitably colored my writing, reminding me of how easily we --- and I mean all of us --- can slip from civility to brutality in the right conditions. It’s difficult to come away from Jerusalem without a considerable wariness about human nature, as well as a profound sadness at how quickly and irrevocably we can turn against each other.

BRC: Your writing is full of imagery and I dog-eared more pages in this book than I have in any other in a very long time. How long did it take you to write LOSING JULIA? Which theme did you decide to explore first --- old age remembrances, the war, or the romance?

JH: It took about two and half years, though I can never break down how much time I actually spend writing and how much I idle away staring blankly at my computer screen or rearranging my desk.

I knew from the start that I wanted to write a love story but I wanted it to be part of a larger story of a man looking back and taking the measure of his life --- a sort of meditation on love and loss. I chose to set the book against the backdrop of both war and old age because they raise some of life’s most difficult questions, for example, how to retain a sense of hope and resiliency in the face of seemingly hopeless conditions.

BRC: Have any particular author(s) influenced your writing and thinking? Are there any contemporary novels that you have read recently that you felt were outstanding?

JH: There are so many, but I’d certainly list Hermann Hesse, Erich Maria Remarque, Graham Greene, Virginia Woolf, Hemingway, John Cheever and Dostoyevsky. Most of the books I read seem to be by dead authors because I have so much catching up to do, but I’ve recently enjoyed --- and some of these aren’t all that recent --- THE POISONWOOD BIBLE, THE THINGS THEY CARRIED, WRITTEN ON THE BODY and PLAINSONG.

BRC: Are there any plans to turn LOSING JULIA into a film? What do you think about the whole book-to-movie trend?

JH: Nothing firm. While I certainly wouldn’t mind the money I didn’t write LOSING JULIA with any big expectation of selling film rights. To my mind, the story I had to tell is best told with words, and when I’m asked who I see playing this or that part I sort of shrug because I don’t see anybody but the characters themselves. Movies, of course, have their own strengths and beauty and magic but rarely are they more than a pale reflection of the books they are based on, simply because literature is capable of so much more depth and nuance. As for the book-to-movie trend, I think it’s great in so much as it has given some writers the financial freedom to keep writing and regrettable to the extent that writers may be tempted to produce cinematic books. I believe it was Hemingway who recommended that the best course of action for the writer is to stand on the Nevada border, wait for Hollywood to toss the money across, and then throw the manuscript and run for it.

BRC: Do you have any new projects you're working on now?

JH: I’m well into a second novel, which is refreshingly free of nursing homes and trenches. While I’m enjoying writing in a contemporary voice, I’d like to immerse myself in another historically-based book in the future.