My new novel, The Choice, is about the life and times of John of Salisbury; but, you may ask, who the heck was John of Salisbury and why should anyone be interested in him and what he did? I first came across his name almost twenty years ago although I cannot remember how or where. But to paraphrase Will Rogers I never met a rabbit hole I didn’t like and was intrigued by what I found. John had studied under Peter Abelard in Paris and in later life was clerk to Thomas Becket, the archbishop of Canterbury. Those men were two of the most controversial figures of the twelfth century. In popular culture Abelard, one of the greatest scholars of his time, is perhaps best remembered now for his ill-fated affair (that led to his castration) with Heloise d’Argenteuil, and Becket for his quarrel with King Henry II of England—a quarrel that led to his murder in Canterbury Cathedral and subsequent canonization. Romantic novels have been written about Abelard and Heloise, and mountains of scholarship written about Becket.

What intrigued me about John was that he lived through, and played a significant role in, those turbulent times. In addition to being a highly regarded scholar, he had many dealings with leading figures of the day and a complex relationship with Becket that may have started when they were both students in Paris (maybe in the early 1140s) and ended when Becket was murdered by Henry’s knights on December 29, 1170—an event witnessed and recorded by John and other of Becket’s clerks.

John was a prolific writer and we have hundreds of his letters that discuss the events and ecclesiastical gossip of the day. He also wrote several books. One of them, the strangely named Policraticus, is a political and philosophical tract that covers just about every topic under the sun and, in particular, corruption and tyranny in court life. He even went so far as to suggest that it was justified to slay a tyrant.

When I first learned about John I thought that one day I would like to write a novel about his life and times, but back then I was still living my other life of solving nonlinear partial equations and pursuing research in nonlinear dynamics. And when I finally decided to change my career path, I first had to get two volumes of short stories (The Lost Heifetz and Other Stories and The Inquisition and Other Stories) out of my system. Finally, about four years ago I started my novel about John and found that the rabbit hole was a vast warren filled with works by historians, philosophers and theologians. There was a lot to learn.

John’s books and letters tell us about the scholar and diplomat, but John the man is elusive. I wanted to explore his character, to build a picture of the person while still adhering to the known historical facts. It was a case of using the tools of fiction to sew human flesh onto the historical bones. John was faced with a fundamental dilemma: he had to choose between fealty to his king and loyalty to the institution he served, namely the Church. John’s story is a timeless one: it is about the uses and abuses of power, hypocrisy and duplicity, and friendship and courage. His story may be set in the twelfth century but it tells us that absolutely nothing has changed.