Bret Anthony Johnston To Speak About New Novel With Canio’s

Renowned author and Sag Harbor resident E.L. Doctorow once said, “the historian will tell you what happened. The novelist will tell you how it felt.” This message has been the guiding light for Bret Anthony Johnston in writing his newest novel, “We Burn Daylight,” which will premiere with a reading at Canio’s Books on July 30.

The story takes the classic star-crossed lovers’ story of “Romeo and Juliet” and places it within the cultish context of Waco, Texas in 1993. Johnston said he came up with the idea for the story while on a book tour for his previous novel, “Remember Me Like This,” more than 10 years ago.

“I came to the information that people who lived in the Branch Davidian Compound [the site of the 1993 FBI stand-off against the cult led by David Koresh] could work in Waco, which is about 25 miles away from the compound,” he said. “Once I knew that, I just started imagining what it would be like to have a relationship with someone, and not know what the other half of their life looked like.”

Johnston grew up in Corpus Christi,Texas, where he watched the Waco siege live on television. He was inspired by the drama that unfolded before his eyes.

“I just started thinking about what it would be like to fall in love with the new girl in school, and not know that she was being groomed by this weirdo out in the plains to be one of his spiritual wives,” he said. “I really thought about it for years and years, and the story just kept accumulating in my imagination until I started writing it, because I didn’t know the answers to those questions. So I had to write the book to find out.”

In its final draft, the book loosely retells the story of “Romeo and Juliet” through the characters of Roy and Jaye. But that wasn’t always the plan.

“I didn’t set out with that in mind at all,” Johnston said. “It was only after I had done a number of drafts of the book, and I started recognizing how the stories paralleled each other.

“Once I recognized the way the stories were mapping onto each other, I went back. I didn’t change anything to bend it toward Shakespeare, but what I tried to do was to add in a lot of references and Easter eggs for anybody who’s really a Shakespeare scholar or loves ‘Romeo and Juliet,’” he continued.

The book seamlessly mixes the 1993 timeline against that of a series of modern podcast transcripts from 2024. Mixed-media storytelling has risen in popularity in recent years, but that, too, wasn’t always part of Johnston’s plan.

“One thing that I can say is that I never know what’s going to happen in anything that I write,” he said. “I don’t ever go in with a plan.”

When he started writing, the book contained a number of interstitial interviews, but they were not podcasts.

“I wrote them really as a way for me to start to understand the characters and understand where they were in 2024 compared to 1993,” Johnston said. “It was a way for me, as silly as it sounds, to figure out who had survived and who hadn’t.”

Later, he started to think that these transcripts might help to broaden the story, so it wasn’t all happening in 1993.

“It wasn’t until very late in the process that I even understood who was doing the interviews,” he said, the answer to which adds a suspenseful twist for readers.

He then came up with a title, “On the Lamb,” a double entendre that, when put in context, leaves readers giggling, and which he said sounded to him like the title of a true-crime podcast. From there, the idea flourished. “I just thought it was silly,” he said.

The book is separated into four parts: “The White Horse,” “The Red Horse,” “The Black Horse” and “The Pale Horse” — named after the four horsemen of the apocalypse from the Book of Revelations.

“There’s a little bit of an Easter egg quality to that as well,” Johnston said, “but I also thought it might be a way of blurring the relationship between the story and scripture and how those things are also blurred by what Perry [the David Koresh-esque cult leader] does.”

Johnston’s writing process is highly character driven.

“It’s all a process of discovery for me,” he said. “It’s me trying to get out of the way of the characters and get myself out of the book so it can become the most ideal version of itself.”

The context of Waco, though a huge part of the story, is not really Johnston’s main focal point.

“For me, I was just interested in the characters. It was as simple as that,” he said. “I was interested in the two kids who fell in love. The context of Waco and 1993 became a way of exerting pressure on these characters and trying to see how much their relationship could withstand — and the more time that I spent with the kids, the more I got interested in the parents. What would it feel like for a parent to watch their kid go through this?

“There’s so many stories about the actual events of what happened in Waco, but there’s really not much about what it would feel like, and that’s what interested me,” he continued.

Johnston believes that his job as a writer is to “put together a story that the reader completes.”

“I think I want people to care about the characters in ways that surprise them. Maybe that’s what I wanted from the story — to be surprised,” he said. “This book surprised me again and again, and I’m grateful to the characters for that.”

Johnston will be holding a reading of “We Burn Daylight” at the Christ Episcopal Church in Sag Harbor in partnership with Canio’s Books, a place that he is very familiar with, as Johnston is the director of The Steinbeck House’s Writer-In-Residence Program in Sag Harbor.

“I’m a huge fan of Canio’s, Kathryn and Maryann, and the entire village of Sag Harbor. They’ve just welcomed me and the Steinbeck Writer’s Retreat with such open arms,” he said.

The more I get to know the village, the more it seems like a place that really values the making of art, whether it be literary, visual, musical …” he continued. “It’s a privilege to know the village in the small ways that I do, and it’s an absolute honor to launch this book here. I’m thrilled.”

In partnership with Canio’s Cultural Café, the book launch for “We Burn Daylight,” which will include a conversation between Johnston and literary agent Julie Barer, will be presented on Tuesday, July 30, at 6 p.m. at the Christ Episcopal Church in Sag Harbor. The event is free, but registration is requested through caniosbooks.com.