"Young Conquerors"

Christopher Cosmos was raised in the Midwest and attended the University of Michigan as the recipient of a Chick Evans Scholarship. In addition to being a bestselling author, he is also a screenwriter and has had his work featured in the annual Black List of best Hollywood screenplays of the year. He lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

He applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, Young Conquerors, and reported the following:

Page 69 of Young Conquerors features a young Alexandros the Great and Hephaestion on a hunting trip together deep in a Greek forest. They split off from the main hunting group, and instead of the boar they’re searching for, they instead come upon a lion alone in a clearing and there’s a pivotal scene where Hephaestion, who doesn’t know Alexandros very well at this point, learns something very important about him and an unbreakable connection and bond starts to further form and take hold between them.

This scene was inspired by a famous mosaic that’s currently housed in the Pella Archaelogical Museum, depicting Alexandros and Hephaestion hunting a lion, though the scene in Young Conquerors is a bit different as they don’t hunt the lion, but come upon it and instead recognize in it perhaps a kindred spirit. It is a good representation of the novel as a whole in that it shows Hephaestion and Alexandros alone, and for the very first time taking on the world, and also where this scene ultimately leads is to the relationship that’s formed between them that lasts the rest of their lives, and even leads them to conquer the whole world together.

Also, it’s a bond and love that Aristotle - their teacher, a couple chapters later - would refer to (the same in this novel, as he did in real life) as the boys havitwo bodies, but just one soul between them.

This love story is the spine of the novel and window into exploring two of the most fascinating and pivotal characters in history as they’ve never been seen or allowed to have been explored before, and this scene that begins on Page 69 is one of the moments in which they perhaps begin to realize what they mean to each other, and what they could be, together.

They also begin to realize just what this love they share is, how powerful and consuming it can be, and how far in the world it might be able to take them, if they only let it.

Visit Christopher Cosmos's website.

The Page 69 Test: Once We Were Here.

Q&A with Christopher Cosmos.

--Marshal Zeringue