New campus novel: Lucien
JR Thornton’s Lucien debuts this week as a campus novel that blends crime and coming‑of‑age themes—one of several literary releases recommended for March’s reading lists 10 New Books Coming Out This Week.
Harper Perennial releases Lucien on March 17, 2026 (barnesandnoble.com), and the U.S. paperback is listed at 320 pages. (netgalley.com) The narrative follows Christopher “Atlas” Novotny and his charismatic Harvard roommate Lucien Orsini‑Conti, with the pair drawn into an underground scheme to pass forged paintings through galleries and dealers. (harpercollins.com) Thornton has said the book draws on real‑world fraud and impostor cases, with the publisher noting explicit inspiration from Christian Gerhartsreiter (aka “Clark Rockefeller”) and Adam Wheeler. (harpercollins.com) Publishers Weekly awarded Lucien a starred review and called it a “wild ride,” while regional coverage from the Star Tribune described the novel as an “unnerving campus tale” that channels The Secret History. (harpercollins.com) Lucien is J.R. Thornton’s second novel after Beautiful Country, and Thornton — a 2014 Harvard graduate who later studied as a Schwarzman Scholar and earned an M.A. at Tsinghua — now lives in Italy and works with AC Milan. (books.google.com) An audiobook edition is listed on Apple Books, and a separate U.K. paperback from Oneworld/NetGalley carries a March 19, 2026 publication date for international markets. (books.apple.com)
