ANDREW FFRENCH delves into our latest Book of the Month – The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett.

THE BOOK: KEN Follett was best known as a thriller writer when he struck out on a bizarre fictional tangent that left his publishers feeling more than a little nervous.

The author was proving a reliable cash cow and they were hoping the pay cheques would keep coming.

But Follett, who developed an interest in cathedrals after once being sent to Peterborough to research a story for the London Evening News, decided to persist with his dream.

As a young author, he had written a few chapters of a novel about the construction of a cathedral in the turbulent 12th century. But he soon realised he did not have the maturity to finish the story and put the chapters away in a drawer.

For the next decade he wrote thrillers, but he continued to visit cathedrals and the idea of his great cathedral novel never went away.

Then, in 1986, after finishing the thriller Lie Down with the Lions, he resurrected the manuscript of the medieval saga and it was finished in March 1989 – three years and three months after he started it.

At first, the novel won no prizes but in the UK it sold better than all of Follett’s previous books.

But this monster of a novel – it’s over 1,000 pages long – really took off after becoming a bestseller in Germany and then went on to become a word-of-mouth bestseller across the world.

In his introduction in the 1999 edition, Follett acknowledges that it is word-of-mouth recommendations that have made The Pillars of the Earth such a success.

He writes: “You did it, dear reader. Publishers, agents, critics and the people who give out literary prizes generally overlooked this book, but you did not.

“You noticed that it was different and special and you told your friends and in the end the word got round.”

He added: “It seemed like the wrong book; I seemed like the wrong writer; and I almost didn’t do it. But it is my best book, and you honoured it.”

So what makes The Pillars of the Earth so special? Follett did lots of research on cathedral building and worked with French author Jean Gimpel, the author of a renowned piece of research called The Cathedral Builders.

But it is not Follett’s hours of research, and tours of cathedrals that makes the novel such a page-turner.

Right from the start, a macabre prologue featuring a haunting hanging, had me hooked.

Follett introduces us to the stone mason Tom Builder and his family, and focuses on Tom’s efforts to get work.

What Tom really wants is to do something special by designing and building a cathedral and eventually he gets his chance in the town of Kingsbridge.

But that is not before he has suffered his fair share of tragedy along the way – his wife dies in childbirth and then he abandons his baby son on her grave because he doesn’t have enough money to pay for the child.

I won’t give too much away by saying that the baby is rescued by a mute monk who then takes it to Kingsbridge Priory to be cared for.

Once you are hooked on the story of Tom Builder, Follett moves on to political intrigue; the conflict between the church and the state that surrounds the 40-year project to build the great cathedral.

There is no better time to give The Pillars of the Earth a try, despite its daunting length. Channel 4 is screening a blockbuster adaption of the novel, with Hollywood directors Ridley and Tony Scott at the helm. Rufus Sewell plays Tom Builder, while Ian McShane, of Lovejoy fame, is the scheming bishop.

Matthew Macfadyen is Prior Philip with a Welsh accent, and Sarah Parish also stars.

The drama has the 9pm slot on Channel 4 on Saturday night for the next few weeks, so why not read Follett’s masterpiece too? The great British public can’t be wrong.

THE AUTHOR: KEN Follett was born in Cardiff in 1949 and his family were members of the strict Plymouth Brethren.

As a young boy, he was not allowed to watch TV or films or listen to the radio, and had to rely on his mother’s stories and books to inspire his imagination.

When he was 10 he moved to London, and went on to study philosophy at University College, London, where he got involved in politics.

In 1970, he became a music journalist in Cardiff and then moved to London to work on the Evening News. It was about this time that he joined the Labour Party.

He began to write fiction and hit the big time at the age of 27 with his novel Eye of the Needle, which went on to become an international bestseller.

While he was writing fiction, he maintained an interest in medieval cathedrals, which eventually led to him writing The Pillars of the Earth. The novel was first published in 1989.

In 2003, the novel was voted one of Britain’s best-loved novels, in the BBC poll the Big Read.

The long-awaited sequel, World Without End, was published in 2007.

Other bestsellers by the author include the World War Two thrillers Jackdaws and Hornet Flight.

Mr Follett has been president of the Dyslexia Institute and a council member of the National Literacy Trust and lives with his family in London and Hertfordshire.

* The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett is published by Pan, priced £8.99. You can get it for half price at Waterstone’s in Oxford and Witney with the voucher on this page.