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Over this past summer, we had the honor to train with a New York traceur and all-around great guy, Julian Oquendo, who decided to spend the last month of the summer kicking ass and taking names at Primal Fitness . Julian quickly became a fixture at the training sessions around the DC-Metro area, and his willingness to work hard and learn from everyone ensured continual progress during his short visit. To top off his work ethic and great attitude, Julian is also a writer, so when he mentioned this interview to me I jumped on the chance to publish it on APK.

I won't go into details, as they are thoroughly covered herein, but suffice it to say we appreciate his contributions to the DC-Metro community as well as American Parkour, and we hope to see him back in the area soon. Thanks Julian!

Read on for more... 

Brian Sloan is the author of Tale of Two Summers (Simon & Schuster), a novel about two best friends who spend their first summer apart from each other. Staying in touch through a private web blog, Chuck and Hal share their experiences in summer camp, driving school, and falling in love. Hal, spending his summer at home in Wheaton, Maryland, has a crashing encounter with Henri, a French traceur who, throughout the novel, teaches Hal the many techniques for Parkour.

How did you learn about Parkour?

I originally heard about in an article in the New York Times in the fall of 2003, which was talking about a group in New York that was doing Parkour down in Battery Park, and it was right at the same time that I was thinking about this new book. I had this idea of this character who was French. I read about Parkour, and I thought it could be an interesting thing for Henri’s character to be involved in this sport. After reading the Times piece, I Googled it online and I found all these Parkour videos. I realized not only was Parkour interesting just reading about it, but it was physically very exciting, and, in a way, very sexy too.

It fit so perfectly with what I wanted Henri to be: this foreign, exotic, sexy character. This was a great piece of his character, and actually, I feel like it was one of the biggest pieces in my development of the story. Once I added that piece of him being into Parkour, it was like I suddenly understood him a lot more as a person. So it definitely was very formative in terms of the book and what Henri was going to be doing in the book. The idea of Parkour, then, set me off on creating all the physical adventures that they take in the book. Like going to the construction site, which seems like a very popular Parkour pastime: finding a good site and doing some moves. So it really inspired me and gave me a lot of ideas about what to do with these characters.

All of your characters, they all have a different first impression to Henri’s Parkour. They all seem to react differently to what he does. What is the significance for each of the characters? What is Parkour to them?

I think the great thing about Parkour, for the book, is that none of the characters really knows what it is. It’s not like Henri plays soccer. No one in the book has a preconceived notion about what Parkour means. In a way, it ends up being this litmus test for all the characters, like how do they respond to something totally new, totally foreign, totally beyond their experience. Some characters are very dismissive about it. Chuck doesn’t really understand it. He’s skeptical. Hal is the most open to it, because I think he’s more open to new experiences, given the state he’s at in his life. He’s fifteen, and he’s come out in the last six months, and I think, suddenly, the world is a new place to him. The idea of Parkour is something new and different… it’s something he’s open to. It reflects who he is as a character. So, in a way, everyone’s reaction to Parkour can explain who they are as a character.

At times, you seem to predict the future from the time you were writing. For example, you can tell that there were moments where you were guessing what movies were going to play a few years later. Did you happen to do that with Parkour?

When I read about Parkour, it struck me as something that could become very popular, because it hit all the teenage bases: it’s dangerous and it’s slightly (but only slightly) illegal, depending on where you’re doing it, it’s also a very physical activity, and it’s really a group activity. It seemed to have all these elements that it would be popular with younger kids. Andagain, it was something new. Every generation finds new things and latches on to them and makes them their own, and it just seemed that this is something that could really take off. From what I read on some of the bulletin boards, it wasn’t a part-time pursuit. The people who were into it also seemed to be very passionate about it. And from the videos people made, you could see they’d put a lot of time and work into them.

Is Henri, the official traceur in your book, an antagonist?

In a classical sense, he’s probably the antagonist. Hal is certainly the protagonist, and Henri causes a few troubles for him in that respect, but I definitely see [Henri] as a force which ends up changing Hal, and that’s, I think the classical definition of the antagonist. Is he a bad guy? No, I don’t think so, I think he’s somebody who’s going through his own sort of changes, as indicated by what happens to him at the end of the book: for Henri, it’s the beginning of a different phase in his life.

Are you planning on using the elements of Parkour again?

Yeah…if I ever get around to doing a sequel to Tale of Two Summers. A lot of people have asked me about what happens to these two guys. There’s definitely more to the story.

What was your favorite/least favorite aspect with the writing the book and about your characters?

For this book, the most difficult thing was in the writing. I’m usually very methodical about my writing. I try to plan everything out. And for this book, I had an outline, but about a third of the way through, things started changing, and the characters took on a life of their own, to the point where they started doing things that I didn’t have control over. The characters started dictating the story to me, in a way I hadn’t really planned on. The final outcome of the book was a big surprise. It was nothing I had thought about in the beginning, especially in the way the relationship between Hal and Henri develops. I had no idea it would be as intense as it got.

Kinda like real life?

Exactly.  Which was kind of great, because the one thing I loved about this was that I wanted to capture real life.  It’s why I liked using the blog format, because it would be very real, very informal. It wasn’t a classic novel style.  Because I was in that format, and that I was writing in such a loose manner, it really opened me up to a lot of other possibilities. And I think, in the end, the book really did come out as this very realistic portrayal of a few very intense months in their lives.

Were there any difficulties in writing about Parkour?

The hardest part in terms of Parkour was describing what Henri was doing. I would write a bunch of stuff, and I’m like, “I don’t even understand what I’m writing.” I would go back to the websites, watch a few more videos, to describe what’s happening. I wanted to be really truthful to what he was doing in terms of his Parkour moves.

It’s funny, because I talked to people a lot about Parkour because of the book and I feel, as much as I talk about it, until people actually see it, it’s really hard for them to get it. Because again, it’s something very new.  It’s something that there’s really no great point of reference for. Even when you say something that traceurs don’t like, like the description of “Skateboarding without a skateboard,” even that doesn’t truly explain it, because it doesn’t do justice to what you’re describing. Yet, the minute people see it, they’re obsessed. It’s one of those things that once you see it, then you’re kinda like, “Wow.” Seeing it is believing it, and that was my biggest challenge in the book. How was I going to explain it in a way that it was as exciting as seeing it? Unfortunately, there’s actually no way to do that. But hopefully people will read about it and doe some research on their own to see what Parkour really is all about.

How do you feel about the final product?

I feel great about the final book. I kind of wrote the book almost in real time. I wrote Hal’s entry one day, and then Chuck responding the next. I was trying to get in the groove of this back and forth conversation. I wrote the first draft in about 8 weeks. I got into the mindset of these characters, and it sort of just worked. The reaction of the book has been strong. So many people, like you were saying, relate to these characters. They feel like I’m telling their story in a way, which to me, is the best compliment you can get as a writer, because what you’re trying t­­o do is connect to your readers and make them understand your world.

To me, when I read the book, I just think I wrote a big inside joke to myself. I think, “This is really nice that I wrote a book, but it’s really something that I’m the only one who’s going to understand this.” So when other people read it, and are like, “This is my story!” it makes me think I actually wrote a real book, and not just a story about me and my experiences. Because it’s certainly about me and my life mixed in with some of the research I did. This was more (than my previous book) from my heart, about me: falling in love for the first time and what that experience is like, and that’s the sort of universal experience, as I’ve realized.  Everyone loves a good love story. And, apparently, that’s what happened with this.

Brian Sloan is also the author of A Really Nice Prom Mess (Simon & Schuster), and Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys (Dutton). He is the director numerous films, including “WTC View”, “I Think I Do.His website www.briansloan.com has all the details.