Finn Longman's adult fantasy debut is a story of love, yearning and grief

The story unfolds through three perspectives – Bisclavret’s in the third person, the king’s in the second person and the wolf’s point of view written in verse – as Bisclavret attempts to rejoin society.

Bisclavret’s shifts into the wolf are unpredictable and uncontrollable. The change is incredibly visceral. “He snaps back into his own body with the ricochet of a broken spine locking into place,” writes Longman. Elsewhere, “his spine shatters, his neck breaks, and his body remakes itself into something unholy”.

For Longman, werewolves are “fundamentally defined by the loss of control over their own body” and Bisclavret’s condition, for them, became a “disability metaphor” and a way for Longman to write about their own chronic pain.

At the age of 17, Longman “developed debilitating chronic pain” in their hands. Up to that point, they had played the violin for a decade and “suddenly I couldn’t play...I lost a really fundamental part of my identity, the idea of me as a musician, and I lost the ability to write for a bit. I lost all this control over who I am and what I did and I was in a large amount of pain”.

Twelve years on, Longman now plays in local pubs on folk nights, but they still live with the pain as well as fatigue and migraines. Their chronic pain and their relationship with their hands contours Bisclavret’s experience shifting between human and animal.

“Every single time he comes back [to human form], he’s wondering when the wolf is coming next. When you have a long period of health, you’re always waiting, you’re always braced for impact... One of the things I realised when I was writing the first draft was every time Bisclavret transforms back into a human he’s grateful to have his hands again.”

However much he would rather the reverse, Bisclavret comes to realise it is impossible to live without the wolf, but he begins to understand that he does not need to exist at the margins, nor does he have to be alone. It is a realisation tinged with grief.

“A lot of my feelings about disability are very much grief,” says Longman. “Grief for lost opportunities, grief for other versions of myself that don’t exist anymore, grief for those things that get taken away from you when you’re not in control of your body.”

But there is a light and Bisclavret sees eventually there is someone that will seek him out in his worst moments, bring him back and love and care for him.

“A lot of Bisclavret’s narrative is about the moments when you are unable to participate in society and for people not only to wait for you to come back, but to go looking for you and to want you even when you can’t be a part of things.”

Longman disclosed in their blog that the novel has a happy ending because, they tell me, “there was so much darkness around me and I didn’t want to write hopelessness anymore”.

Forces bring the king and Bisclavret together, but it is not without tribulation or danger. The love that crackles into being is one that we all aspire to – an unconditional love from someone who sees you in your darkest moments and resolutely continues to love you.

“I think being loved in your worst moments is something I write about a lot,” says Longman. “Bisclavret has internalised this idea that he is unworthy of love. I think having to accept love can be very difficult sometimes.”

The Wolf and His King will enchant readers with its nuanced exploration of bodies, kinship and love. This may be a tale about a fearsome wolf, but it is not a story about a monster.