“Write the book you want to read” is classic writing advice. Often, the writers who take those words to heart go on to write books that are light, comforting, and good for escapism. But for Jonathan Epps, a writer living in Charleston, North Carolina, that meant delving into tough themes that he knew were important enough to merit more attention than he thought they were getting in the mainstream literary sphere.

Epps’ third novel, A Pale Song, follows Brian, an unhappy young man who was born to an unhappy couple. Even as a young boy, Brian shows signs of needing help from the caregivers in his life, and while his father, Chuck, is concerned, he is too deep in his own struggles to support his son effectively. When Brian grows into an obviously troubled teen, Chuck makes a weak attempt to talk to him, only for Brian to order his dad to “leave [him] alone”:

Chuck obeyed the menacing address agreeably but reluctantly and turned away down the hall, walking back through the kitchen to his wife in the hope of addressing the issues of their son once more—passing Samantha’s flat laughter and goading words flying toward the television as she leaned toward the screen, desperate to fall into the show as she watched—but he decided against it. A drink would do the job of solace much more effectively than attempting to solve the immortal pains of adolescent boys with a woman, the boy’s mother, who would allow admitting to no such thing.

Sniffing at the air above the crystal rim of the carafe, its tart fragrance seared the widening canals of his nostrils as he poured more of the moody lubricant into a friendly ceramic mug and retreated to his usual solitude behind the house.

When Brian goes on to college, he becomes obsessed with Brandy, a girl with dreams of social-media stardom. When the two of them embark on a road trip together, the horrific results will be familiar to anyone with passing familiarity with the murder of Gabby Petito in 2021.

Heavy themes clearly abound, but Epps’ intent as a writer is to raise awareness with the goal of urging readers to step up when they see signs of someone in distress. Kirkus Reviews praises A Pale Song as “a dark, literary family saga played out across the open road with characters readers won’t want to leave behind.”

Petito’s death at the hands of her fiancé made waves in the news, partially due to Petito being a budding lifestyle and travel influencer—just like Epps’ character Brandy. Epps wishes to be clear, however, that while Petito’s murder inspired the themes of A Pale Song, the story is in no way based on true events. In a publisher’s note, the book is described as “a work of fiction however provoked by real events.”

“I thought [Gabby Petito’s murder] was desperately tragic,” says Epps. “A Pale Song is loosely based on it; I didn’t do a lot of research about who she or her boyfriend were as people. I was looped in by the unfortunate chasing of fame, which I think a lot of traumatized and pathological people do, because they think it’s going to erase their problems, but of course, it only amplifies them. I felt a lot of that growing up, but I can’t imagine how it is for younger generations now.”

In the real-life story of Gaby Petito, the killer’s parents sheltered him for a time before his arrest, a concept that really sparked Epps’ imagination. “I thought, Oh, I want to know what happened then,” he says.

From there, Epps fabricated his own twists and built on themes he wanted to explore that weren’t necessarily connected to the facts of Petito’s case. “A Pale Song is more about the minor traumas that end up influencing our psyches and behaviors in ways that are damaging and hurtful to us. These minor traumas are things that everyone has.” Epps

The Kirkus review points out that writing a road-trip novel, a staple of classic American literature, is inviting comparison to some of the greatest works of the English language, but praises Epps for using the format to explore Gen Z’s “[desperation to] monetize their looks and a highly-curated, overly-romanticized, fantasy-driven lifestyle for recognition and remuneration. Finding oneself invested in characters with such glaring flaws is sure to be a satisfying reading experience for those who take the plunge.”

Epps’ other books explore topics like human trafficking and sexual trauma, but always with a focus on individual people with their own complex set of troubles, and how even small choices can snowball into something bigger. Epps used to work as a high school teacher and therefore has plenty of experience watching how young people’s mental health can spiral out of control without proper support from the caregivers around them.

Epps himself has experienced a lot of traumas, major and minor, and says exploring these dark themes on the page is therapeutic rather than retraumatizing. He says that writing became “a practice” for him after he embarked on his first book, No Winter Lasts Forever, which is concerned with the ever-increasing American phenomenon of mass shootings.“I think a lot of us are looking at American culture right now and saying, Wow! We’re just sort of bowled over by how complex, corrupt, dark, difficult, hard to control, and hard to maintain American life has become.”

So many of us struggle to simply keep up with the daily news without feeling disillusioned at best, despondent at worst. But even with completely immersing himself in these darker sides of life in order to write about them, Epps feels better when he tackles what he sees as our biggest problems head-on. “I’ve had a tremendous amount of therapy,” he says with a laugh, commenting on his relative comfort writing about trauma when he himself has experienced so much of it. He is also two years sober, and after publishing his next book, his goal is to embark on a career as an addiction counselor. He says that above all, he is drawn to helping others.

“The residual effect of writing is that I am alleviated of these heavy burdens,” he says. Epps observes that growing up as a young gay boy in the 1980s and 1990s taught him to be a careful observer of the people around him—a habit that makes it easier to see the deep core of humanity, even in people who commit unspeakable acts.

Epps hopes that his readers are inspired to be better community members who become engaged with the people around them rather than retreating into the solitude of their phones. “A lot of people don’t have any power in this world, and they’re suffering and frustrated by the lack of action from the elites,” he says. “I don’t have the answers. I try not to take political stances on things. I think these issues can only be solved by a community-based understanding of one another.”

Remarking that his first novel, No Winter Lasts Forever, “poured out of [him],” Epps’ backlist is only getting longer. He is currently working on a romantic comedy called Northerly and will have a political dystopia coming out soon, The Never Not Yes. He describes writing books as “the greatest abundance I’ve ever experienced,” and says that he even loves reading long critical reviews because he knows that means the book “affected them in some way, maybe disturbed them. But then I love reading exactly what they didn’t like about it, as long as it’s something of substance.”

Chelsea Ennen is a writer living in Brooklyn.