Queer Utah author pens supernatural thriller novel featuring a gay Bear protagonist
A queer author from Utah has penned a beary chilling supernatural thriller novel, and it is sure to leave you shook!
Park City, Utah-born Wess Mongo Jolley spent the last five years writing his most ambitious project — a three-book sprawling supernatural thriller, set in Salt Lake City, titled The Last Handful of Clover. Saying it is the most challenging thing he’s written, Jolley describes it as an “epic meditation on aging, loss, and regret.”
The story centers on a University of Utah professor named Richard Pratt, who is killed three days before the book begins in a seemingly random act of violence. As Pratt is propelled into the netherworld of the dead called the Hereafter, he is forced to witness the loss and suffering of his husband left behind as Salt Lake City tumbles into a rapid, fiery demise. As other denizens of his ghostly realm begin to enact a brutal revenge on the world of the living, it is only Pratt who can save him.
With the help of a barefoot 15-year-old boy from the old West and an ancient Goshute wise woman, Pratt sets out to save the man he loves, Salt Lake City, and his own wounded soul. Together they must face a ferocious enemy bent on the complete destruction of a great American city — an enemy with his fingers deep in Richard’s shameful past.
“The Last Handful of Clover is a sweeping supernatural thriller about love, loss, regret, and redemption,” Jolley says. “It is a novel of terror, in which one man is called upon to face the sins of his past in order to save the future for the man he loves and a city of over a million innocent souls.”
The story takes the reader from the remote Montana wilderness of 1810 to a secret chemical weapons laboratory under the Utah desert.
When asked why he chose to set the book in Salt Lake City, he talks about his mixed feelings of being raised in the area.
“Utah is an amazing place, and it’s always captivated my heart. Even though, as a young gay man, I felt a need to flee from the rigid culture of the state, I still think of it as my home,” he said.
“And Salt Lake City is an especially interesting town. Besides the conservative Mormon culture, Salt Lake boasts an artistic and bohemian underground that is fueled by the otherwise conservative world around it. The contrast makes for a vibrant, interesting, and diverse environment.”
“Right from the start, this story tied in heavily with a lot of Mormon history and culture. You’ll read references in the novel to several crucial incidents from Utah history. The massacre of the Goshute Tribe in the novel is based on a real historical incident, and the Fancher Train that passes through the state in 1847 is the actual wagon train that was later massacred in Southern Utah at Mountain Meadows,” he explains.
“I suppose this novel embodies my mixed feelings about Salt Lake City. It’s my chance to pen a love letter to the place where I grew up, and where I came out, and where I learned to love myself and other men,” he said. “But it also gives me a chance to vent my frustration at the place by burning a lot of it to the ground (metaphorically, of course).”
The story is also interesting because it includes a little bit of Bear flavor. When asked why he wrote the story with a gay main character, who is also a Bear, Jolley said that writers “need to write what they know.”
We had a chat with Wess to discuss a little more about the inclusion of a Bear protagonist and what he loves most about Bear culture.
Kyle Jackson: The main protagonist of the novel is a Bear. What sparked the decision to make him a Bear, or why was it important for him to be not only a gay man, but a Bear?
Wess Mongo Jolley: I guess the simplest answer to that question is that I wanted to write what I know! And I wanted the emotional experiences and landscapes of the protagonist and his husband to be as genuine as I could make them.
That meant that they had to exist in a world I knew well enough to represent accurately. So I guess Richard is a bear for the same reason that he is an academic: because those are two worlds that have permeated my experience and my sense of self for decades.
The novel is very much about aging, loss, regret, and redemption. And although those things are certainly not unique to bears or gay men, I think we might experience them in a slightly different way than our non-gay and non-bear counterparts.
I hope some of that authenticity comes through in my characters. My goal has always been to find the genuine heart of the novel’s themes, while communicating them in a way that will sing to both gay and non-gay readers alike.
KJ: What are some of your favorite things about Bear culture, and did you include any elements of Bear culture in the novel?
WMJ:I think I’ve been a bear since before “being a bear” was a thing! My friends and I referred to ourselves as bears back in high school and college, and that was ca. 1980! I don’t think there was much in terms of a cohesive Bear culture back then, so when it emerged and I found it later in the 80s, I felt like I’d found my home.
At its best, bear culture is about acceptance. And that means acceptance of our bodies, ourselves, our community, and our differences. I’ve always found bears to be hungry, in both the literal and metaphorical senses. We’re hungry for good food and drink (of course) but we’re also hungry for more: for touch, for connection, for community, and for living life with passion and commitment.
The novel’s title refers to something the protagonist once told his lover: That when he dies, he’ll pull one last handful of green clover with him into the grave. That kind of hunger and lust for life is something that I most admire about bears.
Per the second part of your question, there aren’t a lot of very specific bear cultural references in the novel. It’s a horror novel that begins the day the protagonist dies, so things spiral out of control pretty quickly! But I hope that there is a “bear sensibility” readers will recognize throughout the book.
KJ: Bears love horror! Can we look forward to more horror or supernatural thriller novels from you in the future?
WMJ: Absolutely! Most of my prose work has horror and supernatural themes woven into them, so if this novel does well, there is definitely more to come.
My next project is a memoir based on a summer I spent alone in the Canadian wilderness in 1984. But right after that I’ll be working on the sequel to The Last Handful of Clover, which will have some of the same supernatural and horror elements.
That story is set largely in 1857, as the Fancher wagon train makes its way to their brutal and bloody fate in Mountain Meadows. But it also has elements of reincarnation, time travel, and features an appearance by Walt Whitman. (How is that for a teaser!)
I also have a couple other horror novels in my head that are trying to fight their way out, so I’m sure they’ll be coming along eventually as well.
Jolley has gone an unconventional route in releasing the book, using the membership platform Patreon in his first release.
“I’m hoping that everyone will go there and become a patron. For the cost of a cup of coffee each month, you’ll get two chapters a week. And for just a few dollars more, you can listen to me narrate each of those chapters as well. I’ll be releasing the audiobook chapters on Patreon simultaneously with the text chapters,” he explained.
“But more than just a place to read the book, my dream is that we’ll build a community around the book on Patreon. I’d like it to feel like a book club, where we can all chat about the chapters as I release them. The feedback will help me immensely as I move it toward publication, and anybody that sticks with me for this entire journey will get a print copy of the book, if and when it is published.”
For those who may not have the resources to purchase a Patreon membership, he will be releasing the book later on the Wattpad platform and through his podcast. He says he sees the book as the first in a series.
A substantial portion of this article first appeared in Q Salt Lake Magazine.
More info on The Last Handful of Clover can be found at wessmongojolley.com/fiction.
The Patreon link is patreon.com/wessmongojolley
