Debut Author Snapshot: Sean Pidgeon

From the poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson to the coconuts of Monty Python, western culture has long celebrated the legend of King Arthur, a British monarch who allegedly vanquished the Saxons at the turn of the 6th century. Historians and scholars have likewise chased the real Arthur, seeking hard evidence that such a man ever existed. Debut writer Sean Pidgeon offers his take on the romantic mystery in Finding Camlann. The English-born writer poured 16 years of research into his fictional story of an Arthur-obsessed archaeologist, who, together with an alluring linguist, follows a fresh trail of clues from a pair of discoveries at Stonehenge and the Bodleian Library. Now based in New Jersey, where he publishes science books for John Wiley & Sons, Pidgeon shares with Goodreads some images of the English countryside, where his tale unfolds.

Goodreads: Where do you stand on the King Arthur debate? Man or myth?

Sean Pidgeon: For me, Arthur will always remain on some level an irreducible mystery, and it feels right that this should be so. If we were able to place him precisely in time and space, I suspect he would be far less interesting to us.

GR: You've admitted to a lifelong preoccupation with Arthurian legend. And you are not alone—scholars have dedicated countless years of study to the subject. What keeps you hooked?

SP: In the 1990s, I read many books about the "historical" Arthur, written by sincere authors who wished to advance one hypothesis or another about the identity of this elusive person. I did not quite believe any of these theories, but the question of how one might go about discovering the true origins of Arthur really grabbed me by the throat. Then at some point I became a follower of the Arthurnet e-mail list and soon became intrigued by this vibrant and highly interdisciplinary community of enthusiasts, scholars of literature and language, side by side with amateur antiquarians and readers of new-age fantasy novels. I wanted to try to create something that would in a small way contribute to and perpetuate the vigorous Arthurian literary tradition that began with Geoffrey of Monmouth and continued through John Cowper Powys and T.H. White, Mary Stewart and Marion Zimmer Bradley.

The Arthurian legends capture so many aspects of my abiding fascination with the history and mythology and geography and literature of Britain. I like to think of him as someone who is "settled deep into the bones of the landscape," as one of my characters puts it.

GR: How did you find and develop the human part of your story—the central characters, archaeologist Donald Gladstone and Oxford English Dictionary linguist Julia Llewellyn?

SP: Donald's character came to me almost fully formed: a careful scholar, habitually reserved but with a latent capacity for boldness and daring. Julia's evolution was far more complex. I wanted to make her strong and clever but in an idiosyncratic way, and it took a few attempts (and, at some point, a change in her profession) to find the right balance. Beyond that, I tried hard to follow some good advice I was given—that the romantic thread was crucial to the success of the novel, and I must make sure it remained strong throughout.

GR: What's next for you as a writer?

SP: About ten years ago, when I first thought I might have finished Finding Camlann, I began to piece together some ideas for a second novel. So far, this has remained largely under wraps, but I do plan to dust off those plans sometime soon.