Transformation Summer follows a teenage boy into adulthood who reflects back on the experiences he had at a camp and how those experiences impacted his life. Where did the idea for this novel come from?

This is probably going to sound like something out of a paranormal/sci-fi TV series, but it really did happen: One winter morning, I was returning to Boston from a visit to upstate New York and driving east on the Massachusetts Turnpike through the Berkshires. There’s usually not much traffic on that part of the Pike, certainly not at that time of day, so you can kind of unlatch your brain. And I just had a flash of inspiration, of two people having an encounter of some kind in one of those wooded mountain vistas I was seeing through my windshield. 

I couldn’t even tell you what that original “flash” entailed, because I immediately started trying to pin it down, pulling the lens back to lend more context. Who are these people? Why are they there? How do they know each other? I just kept going through different possibilities and scenarios.

By the time I got to Worcester – roughly 45 minutes from my exit – I’d hammered out some basics: These were two people at an all-ages camp of some kind, not an ultra-wilderness setting or a vacation resort but a locus of activity with a purpose to it. Yet I didn’t want this camp to be affiliated with a specific organization or faith tradition or behavioral/personal-growth philosophy, either. I thought of it as being a grassroots, DIY-driven initiative that drew people from many different backgrounds.

In the weeks that followed, I decided the story would work better as a memoir, of somebody – Seth, our protagonist – remembering his time in that place (I thought “Toward Transformation” was a good 1970s kind of name for it) when he was a teenager; and that this experience was during a period of great emotional upheaval for him. Seth had not gone there willingly but at the behest of his mother, and at the outset was very skeptical about the whole business. And years later, he’s still trying to process it.

Was there anything from your own life that you put into the characters in your novel?

Not specifically, although I do remember the 1970s (when, like Seth, I was in my teens) as being awash in various personal growth-type programs and opportunities. You’d read or hear about them through TV, movies, magazines, or word of mouth, and it’s fair to say it wasn’t just “hippies” or people into alternative lifestyles who were involved, but middle-class Americans, too. 

That said, I did reflect on the weekend youth programs I’d participated in as a teenager that were run by the Quaker meeting my mother and I attended (just to clarify, I did not formally become a practicing Quaker). At these programs – which dealt with aspects of personal growth – you’d see a lot of the same people, develop friendships or closer relationships over time, and you’d have your shared customs, rituals, in-jokes, etc. You also cultivated a set of behaviors and expectations around these gatherings: unlike at school, you felt you could truly open up and “be yourself,” and not suffer any consequences.

So I thought of those programs as the essence of an “intentional community,” a concept we normally associate with, say, housing cooperatives, collective households, communes, and the like. But I stretched the definition to include those instances in which we withdraw, temporarily, from the larger world into a setting that is its own ecosystem: a camp, a retreat, even an annual music festival.

So that’s how I envisioned Toward Transformation, and how Seth experiences it. In fact, he sees that the kids there his age, most of whom have been attending since they were in grade school, have formed their own intentional community within the larger adult one. Even as he’s struggling with his issues, and is wary about his mother’s involvement in Transformation, he’s intrigued by what he observes around him.  

What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?

Certainly one theme concerns the hold that a memory can exert on us, even years after the fact. And implicit in this is the question, can a memory become an end in itself, ultimately more important than the actual people, places, or events it evokes? Can a memory keep us from moving on, moving forward, even as it enriches us?

Another salient theme in the book is how, at some point in our youth, we come to realize that adults – especially including our parents – are fallible, imperfect, even vulnerable. We may find this revelation perplexing, unsettling, and empowering, maybe all at the same time. That’s certainly true for Seth and some of the other characters in the book.

Yet another theme relates to what I said about intentional communities, specifically those that are formed around short-duration gatherings: After you’ve gained some fresh insights and ideas, or you’ve simply reveled in being in the company of like-minded others, how do you go back to the real world? Can you incorporate the qualities of that special community, that experience, into your everyday life? If you try to explain what it was like to a co-worker or classmate, will they get it? 

This theme is more in the background, but I think it’s also worth considering: the downfall of a unified vision, of consensus. Through Seth, we can see that things are starting to come apart at the seams at Toward Transformation. People are expressing dissatisfaction with the camp’s direction or questioning some of its basic tenets. There’s also the suggestion of more deep-seated differences, notably in personal beliefs and political outlooks, that may further jeopardize its future. Was all this inevitable? Is there a way ahead?

What is the next book that you’re working on and when can your fans expect it out?

Well, I have two unfinished novels, one of which I started before Transformation Summer. That particular one is about a young man fresh out of college who goes to work at a weekly newspaper in early/mid-1980s Central Massachusetts — which, by an amazing coincidence, happens to resemble my life trajectory. It’s a coming-of-adulthood story, I suppose, exploring how we become our own, independent selves, however tentatively or shakily. I also try to depict the days and works of a small-town reporter in what now seems — sadly — like a long-ago-and-far-away era for journalism. I really want to finish that one, and I’m about two-thirds of the way through; I just have to decide how happy I want the ending to be. Wish me luck.

The other unfinished novel is a love story set in early-1980s Boston, which is where I lived while finishing up my undergraduate degree – another incredible coincidence. I already have the ending figured out, more or less, so I have to clear the path that will get me there. 

I also took a short story I’d written and expanded it into a novel; technically, it’s finished, but I think I want to go back in and make some changes, because it has some similar elements as Transformation Summer (e.g., 1970s teenage boy with divorced parents). And believe it or not, I recently started mulling over an idea for another novel; I’ve tried to chase it out of my metaphorical yard, but the idea keeps coming back to the door. 

It would probably be easier to pursue these various projects if, you know, I didn’t have full- and part-time jobs, both of which involve writing. But then again, I never – and I mean never – expected to finish writing, let alone publish, a book. Yet here we are. I welcome any and all encouragement.

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