The Pilgrim

Uther is an orphan farm boy with a simple life. When tragedy forces him to flee England or be arrested for murder, there’s only one way to clear his name: take the oath of Crusade, grab a cruciform sword and join the fight. In the process he unites with the mysterious Templars and follows King Richard “The Lionheart,” a brilliant but troubled man chasing his dream of recapturing Jerusalem for his people and elevating his name for eternity. They journey across Europe and the Mediterranean, until they find themselves at the door of everything they desire. Before they can walk through the gates to paradise, they must face down Saladin, the greatest Muslim general that has ever lived, and an equally brilliant man who will stop at nothing to protect his people’s homeland.

The Pilgrim is a historical adventure blockbuster, a gripping coming-of-age story, a modern reflection on war and spirituality, and an exploration of what drives people to do great and sometimes terrible things.

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About The Pilgrim

The Pilgrim is more than just a tale of knights and castles—it’s a gripping coming-of-age story, a modern reflection on war and spirituality, and an exploration of what drives people to do great and sometimes terrible things. It touches on current issues such as income inequality, bullying and cultural relativism as well as timeless issues such as faith, willpower and the consequences of self-destructive behavior. It’s written for an audience that devours absorbing, character-driven Historical fiction such as Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth and New York: The Novel by Edward Rutherfurd. While it is not a fantasy story, it captures the same exhilarating tone of such timeless, medieval-inspired epics as A Game of Thrones and The Lord of the Rings.

Creating the Pilgrim

The original concept for The Pilgrim came from an inspiration to explore the mythic symbol of the knight, including its origins and the real men behind the armor. Inspired by a love of history and a fascination with mythology, The Pilgrim puts a modern American spin on this by embracing the story of a simple man brought from the lowest rung on the ladder to the highest.

The Medieval Zeitgeist

The story of The Pilgrim, a journey that takes it’s characters from the western corners of Medieval Europe, across the Mediterranean, to the sandy shores of Sicily, Cyprus and eventually The Holy Land, sprang from not just a love of history but also a fascination with the how the zeitgeist (“spirit of the times”) helps form the mythology of that time. As I delved deeper into understanding the highly mythologized times of the Crusades and the Middle Ages/Medieval era, I kept coming back to a curiosity as to why, in our modern world, flooded with technology and new ideas every second, do these much simpler times keep inspiring us?

History Comes to Life

I decided to develop this idea into a story, and this dovetailed nicely with some reading I’d been wanting to do about the middle ages, which in turn lead to a year of research. During this time I became fascinated with the historical character of King Richard 1, known as “the Lionheart.” Not only was Richard a recognizable, modern, conflicted antihero character, but he seemed to me to be a historical character who for some reason, hadn’t truly been given his due in any modern works of fiction, save for a cameo here and there in a Robin Hood story.

Amazing Parallels

As I learned in depth about the events that made up the third crusade I was taken aback by how many parallels there were to today’s events and figures. This inspired me to use the Crusades as a parable to write about war while living during wartime. I was also fascinated by the idea of two rulers of great nations that went to war against each other, but who were both genuinely good people. King Richard, though unyielding on the battlefield, was an honorable man who reflected on his mistakes and fought shoulder-to-shoulder with his lowest men. On the other side was Salah ad-Din, one of the most revered men in the history of the Muslim world, who was a brutally efficient general that believed in a fair fight and had a sensitive heart. I sought to divulge what really happened when these two great men were pitted against each other?

Exploring Themes

Some of the themes that emerged as I made my way through my drafts included personal change, and how we deal with our own shortcomings, which often affect us against our will. Needed change can be, for many people, the equivalent to climbing a mountain. Can we transcend our weaknesses and recreate ourselves to get to the places we want to get to, or are we destined to be who we are from cradle to grave? We all know that humans are capable of vast adaptation and the ability to rise to great heights, but why do many of us still find that we’re stuck with many of the same problems, both on a personal scale as well as societal, that seem to have been with us forever? Over the course of the book we see this struggle through the eyes of two characters, one a common man, and one a king.

The Pilgrim is a very personal creation and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

Go HERE to read The Pilgrim now, available on Amazon in print or digital

About the Author

Seth Friedman is a third generation artist and designer living in New York City. The Pilgrim is his first novel. He began research in 2007 for a story that was intended to be adapted into a series of scripts for a TV drama about the Crusades. After a year of research, he came to believe that the idea deserved a format that could allow for a more vivid and intimate picture of such a lush, elaborate, mythic time in human history. Instead of a script he began work on a prose story that would eventually evolve into The Pilgrim. His remaining research and story development from the initial phase will be utilized directly in the creation of a sequel to The Pilgrim.

Go HERE to read The Pilgrim now, available on Amazon in print or digital