Christopher Cosmos is Greek to the core and his newest book honors that heritage. Young Conquerors: A Novel of Hephaestion and Alexandros (Peninsula, Sept. 2024) tells the tale of Alexandros, later called “the Great,” and the person who loves and knows him best.
Yet Cosmos, who has traveled extensively in Greece, the Mediterranean and Mexico, has also created a book that honors the talents of creators and booksellers across Michigan.
“I put together an all-Michigan team,” said Cosmos, who spends time both in Michigan and on the West Coast as a full-time writer of novels and screenplays. His first book, Once We Were Here, was published by Simon & Schuster/Arcade in 2022.
“There are certain frustrations with going with a traditional publisher,” he said. “I came up with the idea of wanting to go through the process myself.”
Cosmos found cover and interior designers right here in Grand Rapids—Laura Klynstraf and William Overbeeke—created his own publishing company, and had the jacketed hardcover novel printed in Chelsea, Michigan. Signed copies are for sale only in indie bookstores across Michigan including Grand Rapids’ Schuler Books, Plumfield Books, and Orchard House Books and Cafe, and The Book Cellar in Grand Haven. It’s also available via online retailers.
“Publishing this way is supporting Michigan creatives and artists, it’s a way of giving back to the community that has given so much to me,” said Cosmos, a graduate of Lowell High School and University of Michigan.
Cosmos has visited every location in the book including northern Greece, where his family is from, and the city of Pella, where much of the novel takes place. He stayed in modern Pella and visited the ruins of ancient Pella. While the names and dates of major events and people are based on historical fact, it’s the spaces in between that Cosmos loves best.
“The novel is meant to be more emotion-based. It’s my interpretation of what happens between those great dates and drawn in a realistic way,” he said. “Hephaestion is the closest person in the world to Alexander; they are one soul and two bodies. I want to tell the story of two people who were in love with each other and the different ways that can look. I try not to put a label on anything, which we are quick to do today. I want to simply portray them as they were, who they were as the most important people in each other’s lives.”
Cosmos is working on selling film and television rights, as well as writing a screenplay for the book and dreaming of other novels. This book, to him, signals “a community-based way forward” in publishing.
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