What's so special about Gawain?

Gawain: A Year to Live is my first novel. Or should I say... my first published novel.

Like most writers, I have a secret horrible novel, living in a drawer somewhere, locked away from the light of day, and should it escape, would no doubt go rampaging monster-like thru town, full of rage and betrayal. Burdened by its half-formed characters, misshapen plot, and raw unedited passages, who could blame it?

I didn't want to repeat that experience-- so I began to look for a story I could adapt. Perhaps something Arthurian! I loved T.H. White's The Once & Future King, but gosh... a lot of people have done a lot of excellent stories about Arthur.

Just then, a new translation of the Green Knight poem (by poet Simon Armitage) fell in my lap. In addition to being a spooky ghost story, it's also a sensual depiction of the beautiful Cornish countryside, and an ironic look at the rules of chivalry.

But what really attracted me was a strange lacuna in the poem. There's a gap, you see, jumping over an entire year between Christmases. Was I meant to believe that Gawain was just chilling, calmly living his life as if there wasn't imminent and unavoidable death hanging over his head?

I thought about all the ways we lash out against that implied 'death sentence' in our own lives. Whether it's a brush with cancer, or someone close to us who passes away, or even just a meditative awareness that things inevitably... end. How did this young knight pass that time?

Boom. A novel sprang into my head. I set pen to paper and published it. Easy as that.

No, of course not. It was two years of research and writing. Traveling and editing. Then more editin-- God, editing until my brains fell out. Then more research and rewriting.

The more I read about Gawain, the more I realized... there is no GAWAIN. There are stories upon stories upon stories, each one showcasing a completely different character. In some, he is a villain. In others, a superhero. In still more, a loyal knight. Or an abuser. Or in the case of my novel-- a young person, trying to discover themselves.

Gawain is so ill-defined as to be a fluid identity, many peoples at once. And that search for self, combined with an imminent death, became the whole underpinnings of the novel.

Obviously, you need characters and adventures to populate your story, so of course, those came too. But even they all arose out of the questioning and uncertain core of Gawain.

I think with such an ambivalent unformed character, we can see a little bit more of ourselves than we might otherwise, with a hero like Arthur or clever wizard like Merlin. I hope you connect with Gawain like I did.

-Ryan