Reader's Guide

Reader’s Guide – Spadework About the Author Timothy Findley was one of Canada’s most compelling and best loved writers. He is the author of many acclaimed novels including Pilgrim and The Piano Man’s Daughter, which were both finalists for The Giller Prize. He was also a two-time winner of the Governor General’s Award: The Wars won the 1997 award for fiction; Elizabeth Rex, a play, won the 2000 award for drama. Another of his plays, The Stillborn Lover, won a Chalmers Award. His other novels, plays, and non-fiction works have garnered critical acclaim both in Canada and internationally. Timothy Findley was made an Officer of the Order of Canada and a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He died in June 2002. Inside Spadework Green-eyed and well-defined by bones, Jane was neither beautiful nor forbidding. She was, instead, disturbing—provocative. Who could this woman be, wrapped in all these silent conundrums? people thought. To relative strangers, it seemed that Jane merely waited in the shadow of her actor husband, their son, Will, and her own profession. She spent most of her hours in her studio or hidden in the depths of the theatre’s property department, suspended in time and silence as if, somehow, limbo was where she belonged. None of this told anything like the true story. Her life was subdivided between the everyday and the extraordinary. And yet—on the street, at work—even with her friends—her expression betrayed nothing. To all appearances, Jane Kincaid has it all: a handsome husband whose acting career is on the rise; a generous bank account from her American family; a great job, a bright seven-year old son. But one does not need to dig very far below the surface to see that looks can be deceiving. As the sultry summer progresses, the Kincaids’ marriage unravels, and infidelities and obsessions are laid bare. An errant thrust of a gardener’s spade slices through a telephone cable, and the resulting disconnection is devastating. Griff Kincaid, an ambitious actor with the Stratford Festival, becomes the victim of sexual blackmail. The blocking of a second call leads tragically to murder. And when a Bell Canada repairman arrives to mend the line, his innocent yet irresistible beauty has explosive consequences. Timothy Findley’s first career was in the theatre. A charter member of Ontario’s Stratford Festival, he found success at home and abroad, making appearances on many European and North American stages. In writing Spadework, Timothy Findley drew on his experiences as an actor and on the environs of his new home of Stratford. The result is an engaging peek at the underbelly of ambition and intrigue in Canada’s theatre world. In His Own Words … Timothy Findley speaks on Spadework, inspiration, and the writing process. The following excerpt of an interview by Paula Kirman is reprinted with permission of the author. PK: One of the aspects I enjoyed most about Spadework, were all of the converging storylines. Did the novel come together in a linear fashion, or were all of the stories originally separate from each other? TF: The novel Spadework was born in the summer of 1998, a day before I was supposed to deliver to my publishers a page about the next novel—and I didn’t have a single idea. Bill Whitehead and I were then renting a house on Cambria Street in Stratford, waiting for our condominium to be completed. What happened that summer day was basically what happened to Jane—a gardener cutting the telephone line, and the arrival of the most beautiful human being I have ever seen— made more so by the fact that he (the Bell repairman) had no awareness of his beauty. I then started writing the book, and, having developed the main characters and story lines, was well into the book before it occurred to me that there could be other effects of the cut line—the inability to make a call (Griff and Jonathan) and the equal inability to receive a call (Luke and Runner). Thus, the story lines did develop in a relatively linear fashion. PK: The novel is set in Stratford—what do you want those of us who are outsiders to this particular community, to learn about life in a place where the theatre is so central? TF: What I wanted to show about life in Stratford was the high intensity of any work in the theatre— for actors, directors, designers, property makers, etc. From February to November, the theatre aspect of life in this town is a virtual frenzy of activity. I also wanted to show the animosity and distrust felt by some of the town’s non-theatrical residents toward the Festival and all who work in it. It is something I have encountered personally, and something I very much regret—not just because the Festival has brought so much to the town’s cultural and economic life, but also because I am sad about any division or ghettoization in my community. PK: How do the then-current events that are discussed throughout Spadework, such as the Bill/Monica thing and the war in Kosovo, tie in with the main theme of the novel? TF: I deliberately set the novel in the time period in which its “trigger” existed, because I wanted the story to unfold in the context of Bill/Monica and Kosovo—and in that atmosphere of tension, lies, subterfuge, intrigue and violence. Readers may notice that I even included a Linda Tripp figure in the Festival property department. PK: How did you develop the characters? Do you base any of your characters on people you have known? TF: Except for characters bearing the names of real people (e.g., William Hutt, Martha Henry and the owners and some staff of local restaurants) all the characters are fictional. The character of Robert (Festival Artistic Director) is basically a portrait of the real Artistic Director, Richard Monette—but I felt I had known Richard well enough and long enough not to have the character say or do anything disturbing. And the prototype of Luke, the gardener, was another old friend, Matthew Mackie, to whom the book is dedicated—and who read the manuscript before it was published. As for the rest, like all fictional characters, most display some characteristics I have observed in people I have known—but with the single exceptions of Robert/Richard and Luke, no other character is a portrait of anyone connected with either the Festival or the town. For instance, the character of the visiting director, Jonathan Crawford, does bear some resemblance to a director in England for whom I once worked as an actor—and who did try to exert on me the same kind of sexual blackmail experienced by the character Griff—but, in my case, without success. PK: Spadework is your tenth novel. You are also a playwright, as well as an author of short stories and non-fiction—do you have a preference for a particular genre, and if so, why? TF: I rejoice in writing both plays and prose fiction, and have no preference for either except in the following way: when I am writing a play, I often long for the privilege of writing a novel, in which I can spend more time inside characters’ minds—and when I’m writing a novel, I often long for the enforced economy of writing nothing but dialogue. If you liked Spadework … … you might also enjoy these other Timothy Findley titles from HarperCollins: Dust to Dust Elizabeth Rex (Play: available in March 2003) From Stone Orchard: A Collection of Memories Headhunter Inside Memory: Pages from a Writer’s Workbook Pilgrim The Piano Man’s Daughter The Stillborn Lover (Play: available in March 2003) The Trials of Ezra Pound (Play: available in March 2003) You Went Away Also by Timothy Findley: Can You See Me Yet? Dinner Along the Amazon Famous Last Words John A.—Himself Not Wanted on the Voyage Stones The Butterfly Plague The Last of the Crazy People The Telling of Lies The Wars Praise for Spadework and Timothy Findley “Murder most foul, fiction most fair.” ~ The Globe and Mail “This is the novel Timothy Findley was meant to write … Spadework has the feel of authenticity about it, and it’s as fast-paced and readable as anything Findley has written.” ~ Winnipeg Free Press “ Spadework is an accomplished domestic comedy in a patently Shakespearean vein with a touch of the classic cozy mystery about it.” ~ Books in Canada “Findley, a terrific storyteller, is at his best …” ~ London Free Press Questions for Discussion 1. Findley has described Spadework as southern Ontario gothic. He has also said that, “it’s perfectly clear that I don’t write in terms of genre. I just write whatever I write.” How would you describe the book? How does it compare thematically with other Findley novels? 2. Discuss Findley’s different visions of masculinity in Spadework, examining specifically the characters of Griff, Jonathan, and Milos. 3. The theatre has influenced not only the plot of Spadework, but the structure and style of the novel. What theatrical devices and dramatic conventions does Findley use in Spadework? 4. In Spadework, as in Romeo and Juliet, an undelivered message has dire consequences. What influences do Shakespeare’s plays have on Spadework? 5. How does the character of Mercy Bowman affect the reader’s perceptions of the other characters? 6. Both Griff and Jane “reinvent” themselves. Are they living these new lives successfully, or are they merely playing parts? 7.

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