Christopher Largent

Christopher Largent, in addition to being a teacher of comparative religion and philosophy and a consultant for labor departments and indigenous governments, co-authored:

-- The Soul of Economies: Spiritual Evolution Goes to the Marketplace (Idea House, 1991),

-- The Paradigm Conspiracy: Why Our Social Systems Violate Our Human Potential and How We Can Change Them (Hazelden, 1996), and

-- Love, Soul, and Freedom: Dancing with Rumi on the Mystic Path (Hazelden, 1998)

— books praised by many thinkers, including the Dalai Lama, Stephen Covey, Huston Smith, Willis Harman, Marianne Williamson, Barbara Brennan, Ravi Batra, Charles Tart, Vine Deloria Jr., Russell Means, and famed Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko.

He also contributed articles for:

-- Georg and Trisha Feuerstein’s Voices on the Threshold of Tomorrow,

-- Marianne Williamson’s Imagine, and

-- Beliefnet’s From the Ashes, A Spiritual Response to the Attack on America: Experience, Strength, and Hope from Spiritual Leaders and Extraordinary Citizens.

And he is the author of:

-- The Best Advice in History: Epictetus' Manual for Living, a classic work that has been inspiring readers for almost 2,000 years - and this is a very readable, even enjoyable version of the famous talk by the slave-turned-philosopher, Epictetus.

Tapestry is his first historical novel, about which he says:

"After seeing the Bayeux Tapestry in Normandy in 1987 (some British friends had taken me), I realized that the characters and events behind the Norman Conquest would make a great novel, and it could be fun to write. After all, these 11th-Century events would take place BEFORE the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Black Death, and all the other events that make Medieval novels dark and grisly. This one would take place when Europe was growing, confident, and reforming itself.

"So, I invented two characters to move behind William the Conqueror from the time he was young: the first was an uncle of William's who was a hermit and advised him, and the second was a boy of mysterious identity whose background would be revealed as the novel went along. I sent one hundred pages of plot to my British friends and began my research - only to discover that William DID have an uncle who was a hermit and advised him and that my mysterious-identity boy could easily have lived.

"Having done more research than I care to recall, I began moving the novel from my main character's childhood training in healing and diplomacy to his adult experiences traveling all around northern Europe and even to the Americas. During his travels, he trained with the last prophetess of the old Odin-and-Thor religion in Iceland - a woman who really lived and came out as a great character - and a Mi'kmaq wise man, another wonderful character.

"The narrator also met the often larger-than-life characters - Duke Robert of Normandy, Edward the Confessor, Harald "Hardraada," and Wessex nobles Godwin and Harold - which led me to an impasse, because the lives I studied did not lead to a huge battle. The character logic fell apart. Then I discovered that a percentage of historians argue that the Battle of Hastings never happened - and have good historical reasons for doing so - which set me on a quest to discover what might have been the real events. And who was the real power that set the events in motion.

"The tension between these great leaders and the invasive Holy Roman Empire thus created a great story and a surprising ending to the book, which is being crafted into a television series as of 2025.

"Along the way, I wanted my first-person narrator to have an authentic 11th-Century voice, and I had to (again and again) edit out my 20th-Century biases. An 11th-Century speaker would be direct and emotionally restrained, have no Freudian-psychological reflections, have no existential angst about the meaning of his life, would be fairly mature even at a young age, and would think of the world in heroic terms: many big events were happening, and he would not be afraid to be part of them. In addition, it was the New Millennium (the book opens in 1035), and this is a Great New Era, so the speaker would consider himself completely modern.

"Finally, he would be a real human being, as would the people around him. He would discover - as Tapestry's narrator does - the real human motivations of the characters around him, including and especially the "bad" characters. He would have no time for the one-dimensional evil people that turn up in novels and films these days (and I do not mean to look down on these, because I recently enjoyed "bad guy" Cardinal Richelieu in the first season of the new Musketeers series, well written and wonderfully acted).

"So, Tapestry would give the reader characters to understand, live with, admire, enjoy, and even love.

"In the end, the book turned out to be even better than I planned, and even I had great fun with the characters and the events. I hope that Tapestry's readers will as well."