John Glynn, The Lost Book Of Lancelot

Brett sits down with author John Glynn to discuss his fiction debut, 'The Lost Book Of Lancelot'. They talk about his work as an editor, the massive source material behind this book, queering a legend, staying true to a time period while keeping in mind a modern audience, and the difficulty in writing a love scene. 

John's website:

http://johnglynn.net/

John's instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/glynner85/

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Transcript

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Brett Benner 0:00

Hey everybody, it's Brett Bender and welcome or welcome back to another episode of Behind the Stack, where today I am sitting down with writer John Glynn for his new book, "The Lost Book of Lancelot." This is such a great retelling of the story of Lancelot. I absolutely loved it, and as I said to John in the interview, I loved it so much I couldn't put it down and literally almost finished the thing in one sitting. But a little bit about John. He is a freelance writer and an editor at Hanover Square Press, which is an imprint of Harper Collins. Previously, he was an associate editor at Scribner, where he worked on a diverse list of titles including upmarket commercial and literary fiction, memoir, science, journalism, pop culture, and true crime. He received his BA in English from Boston College and his MA from New York University. In 2018, he was named a Publisher Weekly Star Watch honoree. He grew up in Longmeadow, Massachusetts and currently lives in New York City. So I hope you enjoy this episode of Behind the Stack I am so thrilled to be sitting down with John Glynn for his new book, The Lost Book of Lancelot, which is so good. I, I have to say, like, I was so surprised by this, and I was so entranced and almost did it on, like, one solid read. I just couldn't put it down. So John, thank you so much for being here.

John Glynn 1:27

Thank you. Thank you for reading. I feel like there are so many awesome books out this May, so the fact that you took time to read mine, I, I appreciate it.

Brett Benner 1:36

No, it, it is. The whole, like, May, June, and July this year is such a glut. It's, it's just insane. I also have to just tell you how much I loved your first book, which was a memoir, Out East, in 2019. I thought it was so beautiful. Thank you. I just f- I find it really interesting that, uh, for your, for your fiction debut, you've jumped into this world. It's so, it's so different, right?

John Glynn 2:04

Totally.

Brett Benner 2:06

Uh, you work as an editor, yes?

John Glynn 2:08

Yeah, I'm, um, an editorial director at Hammer Square Press, which is an imprint of Harper Collins.

Brett Benner 2:14

And in reading your bio it says, it says, you know, you, you read, you, you edit everything from upmarket commercial literary fiction, narrative nonfiction, memoirs, science journalism, pop culture, and true crime, which I'm like, okay, first of all, there's gotta be some that you're like, "Ugh, do I really have to do this one?"

John Glynn 2:33

No, it's true. Even, I mean, you reading that out loud, like, my list is really, really eclectic. Maybe, a- and probably more eclectic than, than most editors' lists, um, in publishing, and part of that is just because I've always read widely across a lot of different categories. Mm, yeah, I was gonna ask you that. I'm interested in reading a lot of different kinds of books, so that sort of does reflect my eclectic taste. But it's also nice from a strategic standpoint to publish a lot of different kinds of books, because publishing is often, you know, it's very much an industry of trends, right? And rather than chasing a trend, if you have sort of this very wide array of books in the hopper, chances are you're gonna have something that meets the moment, you know, wherever the moment happens to be. So, um, it, there is a, a, a sort of logic to the madness, but, um, but yeah. Yeah. It's, it's an eclectic list.

Brett Benner 3:37

Wow. And I, you know, I'm a- asking these questions 'cause I really don't know. In, in terms of, like, an imprint, how many editors are there t- or really can there be for an imprint?

John Glynn 3:45

Totally depends. Um, you know, at some of the bigger imprints there are maybe as many as, like, 12, 13, 14 different editors. Wow. And when you have a, a roster that big, editors do tend to be more specialists, right? Mm. You might have a list that is a, a more narrow focus, like here's your editor for, for self-help. Here's your editor for more literary fiction. Uh, but our team's pretty small. We have four editors currently on our team, and all of us acquire a mix of fiction and nonfiction, and my sort of approach to leading that is this idea that, look, if, if one, if one of my editors on my team has a vision for something and they're really passionate about it, then I want them to be able to bring that project forward, right? It has to start with enthusiasm, and that's, that's sort of, that enthusiasm starts with the editor, and then it trickles down to the sales team, who then feed that into account, so eventually it makes its way to readers. So the groundswell- Wow has to start somewhere, and it's usually with the editor.

Brett Benner 4:50

I love that. What is your go- what is your go-to for pleasure reading, Emma?

John Glynn 4:55

Oh man. I do a lot of nonfiction on audiobook. Mm. You know? I love, like, um, a celebrity memoir on audio where the, the celebrity's reading it. Um, but for pleasure, I read, I read pretty widely for pleasure too. I read me- a lot of memoir. I read a lot of different kinds of fiction across different categories. I just read Lady Tremaine. I'm a fan. Loved it. I'm reading Into the Blue right now by, um, Emma Brody, also excellent. Before that, I read Brawler, a collection of short stories by Lauren Groff. So, you know, pretty, pretty all over the map. I read some fantasy. I read some literary, some commercial.

Brett Benner 5:35

As a kid, were you that wide too?

John Glynn 5:36

Yeah, I would s- I would say so. I, I mean, I kinda, I feel like as a kid it was like I kind of read what was, what, what you were expected to read, right? Like, it was the, the reading for school. You know, I, I read up, I would say, pretty early. Like, I remember I was in seventh gra- grade and maybe even earlier reading, uh, like The Poisonwood Bible was one of the first- Oh my gosh books that I read as, like, a kid. Um, and the, I read The Color Purple at, like, a very young age. Um, and so I was kind of always reading, you know, what... My m- my mom really instilled a love of reading in me very early on. She is a retired reading teacher. Oh, wow. And she's a voracious reader, but she would read to me when I was, when I was really little every, every single night. And I, you know, I would always see her reading too, so I'd be curious what, you know, what's, what's she reading, you know? So that's how I read all of Anita Shreve's books, like, in, in high school. You know? I, I was very much sort of, uh, mimicking her reading habits in a way too when I was younger.

Brett Benner 6:52

Yeah. It's funny how many people get that instilled in them from their moms, 'cause I had that same thing. And I remember my mom, every two weeks we'd go to the library. I had my library card. Mm-hmm. I loved that. And always over getting- Yeah in terms of what I'd get, to think of when I get through it. And, like, that started this whole trend of like, "Oh my God, can I get through all these books before I have to return them?" Yeah. "And will I be able to renew this one, or is it a hot title?" But yeah, completely. And I did the same thing too, like you did. Like, my early ones were Roots- and The Thorn Birds, because of course I was just taking them off my mom's shelf and that's- Yeah what she was reading at the time. So funny. Exactly. So I, I'm so curious. Before you ended up in Camelot, were there, like, a million different drafts of different things that you had started and then you're, and that you, like, put aside? Or was this the thing after you'd finished your first book that you were like, it started to You know, come forward for you?

John Glynn 7:46

Yeah. That's such a good question. So I, I published Out East, I published my memoir in, in 2019, and after it came out, you know, I kind of didn't really know what I was gonna write next. I knew it would probably be fiction. I feel like I, I was-- I wrote about people I knew and came out unscathed with, uh, my, those relationships intact. So I, I didn't wanna push my luck writing about people I care about and, and know and care about again. So I knew it was gonna be fiction, but I really wanted to land on the right idea. And in tw- you know, uh, so it came out in 2019. 2020, the pandemic hits and, and like, I had no creative energy at first- Hmm during the pandemic. I really was just You know, I was working during the day and editing, and then, you know, the day would be over, and all I wanted to do was just watch Netflix, you know? Right. It was just kind of like, I just need to get through the day here. So I really didn't feel motivated to, to be honest, to, to write anything for a lot of 2020. And I had a few very vague ideas for what I might write. But then in 2021, I read The Song of Achilles- Okay by Madeline Miller. And it, that book, I don't know if you've read it. It's, it's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, so it's, for anyone who hasn't read it, um, it's a retelling of the Iliad with this gay love story at its center between Achilles and Patroclus, and it's, it's beautiful. So it's so well done, and, and that read is sort of inspired by and pulled from the source material. And it got me thinking like, what other queer stories have kind of been traveling with us all this time, you know, that have just been lurking in plain sight that for whatever reason haven't crossed my purview. And so that's when I found Lancelot and Galehaut. And, you know, a lot of scholarly work has been written about them. This wasn't something like some thread from Arthurian legend that I myself stumbled upon in like some secret archive or anything. But I, I read some of that scholarly literature, and then I started dabbling in, in the source material. And I really was, I was, I was convinced for a long time that I was not the person to write this- Really? just because I didn't have that academic foregrounding, right? I'm not a medievalist. I, I felt like, how can I do justice to, to this, to this story and to, to this tradition really as coming into it as such an outsider? But I just kinda just kept reading, right? I just kept reading more and more of the sources. Um, we're talking like texts from like the 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th centuries. And slowly but surely, I just kind of almost gave myself a crash course in, in Arthurian legend and the medieval world, and I just started sort of in, in fits and starts started writing and- You know, scene by scene, I kind of just built the book from there.

Brett Benner 11:12

Yeah, it was interesting when I started looking up, and this is one of the, one of the reasons I love doing interviews with authors is the stuff that you discover, not only about you guys, but also just about either source material or whatever it is, whether it's historical or anything. But, and you talk about this in the end, about how much descends from the original, kind of what's considered the original te- text, which is Le Morte d'Arthur by Thomas Malory. But what blew me away about that was it was 21 books subdivided into 506 chapters, which I was like, "Good God." Um, and it, and it talked about how Malory didn't invent the stories, that he just translated them and compiled them from the French, and you talk about this, it's called the Vulgate Romances. So was that some of what you were looking at?

John Glynn 11:58

Yes. So if you go back, you, you have to go all the way back to the 13th century, right? Wow. And I always get centuries and years confused, it's like the 1200s. And so there's th- there's this old French prose cycle called the Vulgate Cycle. And it's, gosh, it's like thousands of pages long. It's printed in 10 different volumes, and there's one English translation of the whole thing. And it w- within that, like embedded in that, that prose cycle, is a whole section about Lancelot. It's multiple books long. And it, it, that's where you'll find this, this queer-coded love story. That's where you find this, this thread. And Lancelot is basically... You know, it's impossible to read Lancelot's connection to this fellow knight in Galehaut in any other way from our vantage in 2026, um, when in, in the original, when Lancelot dies, he's buried next to Galehaut. It's not Guinevere, it's Galehaut that he's buried next to, which is very telling.

Brett Benner 13:08

But

John Glynn 13:08

yeah.

Brett Benner 13:08

Good friend.

John Glynn 13:09

They're good friends, right. But that's sort of one of the, one of the interesting things about this because- And I'll geek out a little on all of this- Yeah for a moment. Yeah. So if King Arthur did exist, we're talking like someone in the 40s probably, or 600. But these tales, the Vulgate Cycle, come centuries later, and a lot of the writing around King Arthur and Camelot, a lot of that really develops in the 12th and 13th centuries. But they're not writing King Arthur as a historical figure, right? So they're not writing him and setting this in the 500s or 600s. He's very much a contemporary figure, and these stories are infused with contemporary values. They sort of reflect the values of that, of the 1200s, not, not the 500s. So you see sort of a lot of Christian morality is being overlaid onto these stories, right? One of the challenges in, in writing this book is like you're kind of writing into the gaps, right? It's not like we're getting like a heated rivalry sex scene with Lancelot and Galehaut on the page. It's all sort of, a lot of it's happening in subtext. Some of it is very, very overt subtext. Like, some of it is literally they are proclaiming their undying love for one another. But it, it also-- it has to be sort of that, that sort of relationship in the context of its time would've gone unspoken and would've been sort of outwardly forbidden. So one of the challenges in, in this retelling was sort of creating a system that would allow for that, that love to exist. And so the way I did it was there, you know, there are people that adhere in the, in the narrative world, there are people that adhere to what I call the old ways, which are basically like a pagan tradition. And within that there's a sort of more inclusive view on sexuality. And then there's the new ways, which is Christianity, and they are not as welcoming to people who are not heterosexual. And so that-- within that though, okay, so, so Lancelot's raised in, in the old ways and he, you know, he's able to kind of see a world in which a relationship like this might exist. So it was sort of, it was this fine line of trying to, to build on the source material in a, in an authentic way, but make it feel contemporary and like legible basically to a contemporary audience.

Brett Benner 15:50

Yeah. Before we go further, I do, I would love you just if you could to give a, um- a, a elevator pitch of the book.

John Glynn 15:57

Yeah. Here I am, like, rambling on about source texts and, like, all of this stuff- it's like, "Well, let me explain- I thought I should have thought

Brett Benner 16:04

of that.

John Glynn 16:04

let me explain what the book is." I mean, it's so, you know, first of all, I should say, if you know nothing about Arthurian legend, that's okay, you know? I got- Yeah I got you. Like, I, I, I in part wrote this book with that person in mind, right? But most people have heard of Lancelot. He, you know, King Arthur's most famous knight, and this is a, a queer retelling of his story. It's inspired by all of this source material, but it follows him from childhood. He grows up on this mysterious island through his first love, his training, his encounters with Merlin, and then his arrival at Camelot and his quest for the Holy Grail. I've kind of, like, the elevator pitch I've been using, even though I, you know, we were talking about heated rivalries, like, a heated rivalry set in King Arthur's court, or like, Call Me By Your Name meets Sword in the Stone. So yeah, that's the book. It's fun.

Brett Benner 17:03

No, oh my God, the Disney film you wanna see. Um- Yeah, it's, it's so fun. Like you said, you don't have to know any of the source material to enjoy the book, but also if you do know it at all, it's kind of fun the way you do the twists on these traditional characters that, that so many people know so well. I was thinking as I was going through this, this seems like such an obvious thing now that, that someone like you would come up with something like this because just the whole court of Camelot and all of this stuff seems so queer-coded anyway- Yeah when you look at it. Like, you know, there's a magician- and there's these strong women, and even looking at this story about being raised on an island full of women, you know? Um- Yeah that you look at and you're like, "Well, of course it's queer." Like

John Glynn 17:52

Yeah, 100%. Yeah. No, it was interesting. And, you know, this book, it's very much a mat- a matriarchal power system, I would say- Yeah in this book. The, the m- a lot of the men are sort of, not, not all, but a lot of the men are sort of off on quests, and they're going around, and they're on this chase for the grail, whatever. But it's really the women who hold all of the power and are kind of, like, the, the, you know, they're pulling all of the strings. But they're, in some ways they're kind of letting the men believe they might be in a position of power when they really, they really kind of aren't. Like life. Um, and a lot of that, yeah. That's, yes, exactly. And, and it's interesting because a lot of that, like, that read is sort of available to you in the source material, right? Like, women in, in the original versions of these stories- They're very one-dimensional, right? Like, they fall into two camps. They're like, there's like the damsel in distress or there's the, the outsider witch pariah. Like, there are these two archetypes. But the way that those characters, despite how flat they are, wield power is kind of... It's really interesting, and they are sort of, in a lot of ways, the engine of all of the stories. So it was important to kind of relocate that, that center. I'm

Brett Benner 19:16

so curious in construction, how much of it did you mark out in terms of beats? Was it one of those things where you, you build a skeleton and then kind of had free reign within that frame as you hit these points, or did... How did you do that?

John Glynn 19:28

My gosh, Brent, this book was so hard for me to write. It was, I think in part because this was my first novel and, you know, I had tried writing novels in, in the past, but this was the, this was such a different animal. And even though I did have the, the loose skeleton o- of events sort of from these, from these different stories, there is no one central source text- Mm. -per se. Mm-hmm. Right? I sort of relied heavily on the Vulgate, but it... Unlike, unlike the Iliad, where they're, it's Homer's Iliad, right? There are a lot of different versions of these tales. So part of it was kind of reading everything and figuring out what, what pieces of these stories am I gonna blend together in a way that feels Different and new. So I wrote this entire book originally in the third person. Oh, wow. And yeah, and it felt like it was fine, I guess. It felt okay, but it was like kind of bloodless and I, that sort of gave me the... I look back on it now, it's like that draft did kind of give me the plot, right? Like, I was able to kind of get like a loose sense of the plot, but it wasn't until I rewrote the whole thing in first person that like, ah, okay, no, this is really like what I need to do here. I can kind of... I can see this now. Like, this is what, how I need to tackle these scenes. This is what needs to be added. These are the sequences that, you know, this, this is missing on the page. This needs to be cut. And so it was in that process that I really kind of, the story kind of coalesced.

Brett Benner 21:12

Um- One of the people that I did not know, and he's so central to so much of this, is, how do you pronounce it? Galehop?

John Glynn 21:18

You know, please don't ask me that question. I actually have, I'll be honest, I've heard it pronounced so many different ways. In my mind it's Galehoot, but I'm also someone who pronounced Hermione Hermoine for the first, like, four or five books. So, like, d- I'm, I'm not the expert. I- anyone can pronounce it any way they want is my thing. So however you pronounce it is fine.

Brett Benner 21:44

Yeah, I know. He was someone I knew nothing about. So when that all came out, I, I kept thinking, you know, me trying to be a smarty pants was like, "Was this the original name for someone that's gonna become someone else later?" But no. But it was also described, he's a half giant in the original

John Glynn 22:00

Yeah. Yes. So that's so interesting. So, so Galehaut has a, a pro- a pretty prominent role in the Vulgate Cycle, but then in later versions, his presence gets sort of condensed and then kind of, like, erased to the point where by the time you get to Sir Thomas Malory, he's barely, you know, he's barely a footnote. He really isn't playing a big role at all. So I, I did find bits and pieces of his story in, in other versions of these tales, including this Italian version, um, where they make a mention of, like, a passing mention of his mother, whose name is Bagotta. All we know is that she's, like, beautiful and that she's a giantess. I was like, "Oh my God, this is freaking cool." And so that's all I had to go on her. So I took, I took liberty with, with that character, and I made her into, I made her into a knight. And she is the one who trains Lancelot. Yeah. Galehaut and, and his mother come to the island where Lancelot is raised, and she trains Galehaut and Lancelot together. I mean, I, I picture her almost, like, one-to-one, like Brienne of Tarth- Yes, exactly, exactly from Game of Thrones. Yeah, yeah. So she was super, she was super fun to write. But yeah, that, that element of his, like, half giant, even though he's, he's not, like- He's not the size of a giant because his father is normal size, so he's, he's maybe like, I don't know, in my mind, is he 6'3"- Yeah maybe? Like, he's not, like, like, ridiculously tall or ridiculously large. But, um, but yeah, that was, that was actually drawn from, from some real sources. Wow.

Brett Benner 23:52

One of the other characters I love so much, and what you've done with her, is Guinevere, because in this version she's almost- and this is not a spoiler, but she almost becomes that gal pal to Lancelot- Totally in a lot of ways, and I love that relationship, and I loved her. And again, it speaks to what you were saying earlier about the smarts of these women.

John Glynn 24:13

Yeah. She was so much fun to write. And, you know, the traditional version, it's this love triangle between Lancelot, Guinevere, and Arthur. Guinevere and Lancelot have an affair, and that's really what leads to the fall of Camelot, essentially. So for this, I, I wanted to, you know, Lancelot's, Lancelot's in love with dudes, right? So I had to re, I had to reimagine that, and I love the idea of, like, they are, they do still have that incredibly profound special bond. It just isn't- Mm sexual here in this version. But I will say when I was, when I was writing her, I was very much picturing in my mind Princess Diana. Oh, wow. Oh, wow.

Brett Benner 24:59

Like,

John Glynn 25:00

the mannerisms, the way she sort of moves through the world, and the way that she is sort of this captivating icon in Camelot. Um, you know, everyone adores her, but who is she really, you know? And, and is there a loneliness to kind of that type of global adoration? That was kind of what was going through my mind when I wrote her. I love that, though. And it makes

Brett Benner 25:26

so much sense. Okay, but okay, so it's interesting now, 'cause you've now talked about the two women characters and kind of who you pictured. So then who do you picture as the men? I'm so curious.

John Glynn 25:37

My gosh, everyone keeps asking me this, and in my mind they were just, like, people I created, but people keep asking, like, if there was a movie of this, who would play Lancelot? Who would play Galehaut? I don't know. I don't know. Maybe Tom Holland would play Galehaut, 'cause he's a redhead. Who would play Arthur? I'm not sure. I wasn't really picturing anyone specific when I was writing the men. They were just kind of my own creation

Brett Benner 26:02

in my head. I love that. I love, I, I-

John Glynn 26:04

Did you picture any? Like, did you picture anyone?

Brett Benner 26:06

No, when I was talking to another author about this recently- Um, in an earlier interview where a lot of times for me, I don't always have a face when I'm reading something. There's certain books that, that I've been like, "Oh my God, this would be so great for," but generally, no, I don't always. I'm just kind of... And it's such a weird thing. It's almost like having a dream and you can see a physicality without actually having a face attached to it, if that makes sense So it was a lot

John Glynn 26:35

of

Brett Benner 26:35

that.

John Glynn 26:35

Yeah. Yeah. I think that was, that was sort of my process. Like, I kind of... I can visualize them and, and tell you what they look like, but they don't, they're not like a one-to-one- Yeah to, to anyone. Yeah. And even, I will say, even Guinevere and Pagoda, even though I was very much influenced by people in real life for them, they're kind of their own, they're kind of their own characters too.

Brett Benner 27:01

I also really appreciated the, the book to me had a... And this maybe speaks to what you were trying to accomplish with contemporizing something that's considered so classic, but even the sex in the book was more erred towards a romantic angle of things than a, say, heated rivalry of things. Um, and I really dug that 'cause I thought it was so appropriate to the story. It would've been strange to me to suddenly have, you know, this three-page raw sex scene going on between these guys- with everything that preceded it. It's just a, it's just a thought, but I, it stood out to me 'cause I was like, d- because of what it was, it really could've leaned into that, and you didn't, but I really appreciated it.

John Glynn 27:47

I'm so happy to hear that because I agonized over those scenes. They were so har- They, they were the most challenging scenes and the scenes that I probably took the most passes just writing and rewriting and just tweaking, like, every single word. I was just very, um, focused on trying to thread this specific needle where, you know, you don't wanna be navel-gazing, but you want, you want these scenes to feel earned. Right. Right? You want them to feel true, and you want them to reflect this sense of yearning and buildup that, and chemistry that's happening between these characters. But they also needed to, to, to re- reveal something about these characters, right? We had to see them in a different way, um, and see how they'd react in, you know, this very intimate setting. What does this reveal about them as, as characters? And so the sex scenes that I did include had, had a specific purpose, right? In, in each moment they were, they were there for, for a very deliberate reason. But damn, like, hats off to all the prolific romance writers out there who are, are writing sex all the time. It is not easy. It's a re- it's a real talent. It's a real skill

Brett Benner 29:13

to do. Yeah. This whole kind of world Is something that could be revisited. Do you think you'd ever wanna go back with someone else? Kind of like the Gregory Maguire canon of taking apart The Wizard of Oz. Oh, God.

John Glynn 29:27

I mean, as I said before, this was a really, really hard book to write. And part of the challenge too was like, even on like a language level, you can't describe something as like electrifying.

Brett Benner 29:39

Mm.

John Glynn 29:40

Right?

Brett Benner 29:40

Right.

John Glynn 29:40

You know, you, you can't say something, you know, they're at a pool and the scent of chlorine. You know, like that you have to think almost in like a different, um, orientation towards the world in a way. And so it was hard. So that said, I finished writing this book, and in like the months after, I felt a real like kind of mourning. You know, I was so immersed in, in these characters and in this world that I, I miss it now, right? Like I think about it from time to time and I'm like, ugh, with like an ache. And yeah, like I, it, I think I would wanna maybe go back, but also realistically, I think there has to be an appetite for that, you know? I would, I would have to know that people actually wanted to read that and to, to hear, hear more stories from this world before I, before I fully committed to something like that, 'cause it, it is a huge commitment, you know? So-

Brett Benner 30:42

So what are

John Glynn 30:42

you

Brett Benner 30:42

saying everybody is

John Glynn 30:43

like,

Brett Benner 30:43

buy the damn

John Glynn 30:44

book.

Brett Benner 30:44

Buy

John Glynn 30:45

the damn book. Yeah, yeah. If the book like really takes off and people want it, like I'm down. But, either way I'm fl- I'm flattered.

Brett Benner 30:54

I just have a couple of classic, Arthurian stories or adjacent, and I wanna know if you've read or have opinions of Once and Future King, obvious

John Glynn 31:04

Yes. Read that one in high school, and loved it. Like, that was one of my... So I will say, I purposely didn't read any modern retellings while I was writing this, so I have like a list a mile high that I can't wait to get to. But that is one that I, I have read and, and it's great. Like, that gave us the version of Merlin, and that is just like- Oh, yeah that's the ultimate version of Merlin,

Brett Benner 31:30

The Bright Sword by Lois Grossman.

John Glynn 31:31

Haven't done it yet. No, it's a tome.

Brett Benner 31:34

Yeah, no, it's a tome. Um, I, I, I read it and there's some queerness in there as well too, so it's interesting how he kind of addresses that. Okay, um, The Mists of Avalon

John Glynn 31:45

My mom has read it. I remember like in the '90s, I can like picture the cover. It's like a woman sitting on a horse. The Bright Sword. Right? It's so iconic. But no, I haven't read that, and I was so tempted to. I was so tempted to, but I didn't want it to in any way like inform what I was doing. I wanted to c- come to the material-. fresh. So I haven't read it yet.

Brett Benner 32:06

Have you ever seen Camelot?

John Glynn 32:08

I haven't even seen Camelot. Isn't this so embarrassing?

Brett Benner 32:12

And like Camelot, of any of them, like that should be passed because like, no I was gonna say, I was like, yes, Monty Python. It's a sitcom Yes, yes, yes. It's probably, yes, of course, well, John, the book is so good. People, please go out and get it, and buy independent if you can. Again, you don't have to know anything about an Arthurian legend or any of these people to be completely invested. It's so great. Thank you for being here. It was lovely to sit down with you.

John Glynn 32:39

Thank you. No, this was so much fun. I appreciate it

Brett Benner 32:42

Thank you again, John. And if you've enjoyed this episode or other episodes of Behind the Stack, please consider liking and subscribing so that you never miss an episode. Also, what would be really helpful to me is if you can go to your podcast platform of choice and rate the show with five stars. This seems like a little thing, but it's really not. It helps with the podcast in front of other listeners who may not have heard it yet, and that will enable me to continue to bring you conversations like this one week to week. I'll be back again next week with another episode, and until then, you can look for me on Instagram, YouTube, and now Substack under Brett's Book Stack. Thanks for listening