Stratford Times August 9, 2024 15 Award-winning author and former Stratford Festival associate director to launch new book in Stratford GALEN SIMMONS Regional Editor Award-winning author and former Stratford Festival associate director Rod Carley may not be able to launch his new book, RUFF — a fictional tale about Wil- liam Shakespeare’s efforts to remain rel- evant in a changing world — in Stratford Upon Avon, but Stratford, Ont., will do just fine. From noon to 4 p.m. Aug. 24, Carley will return to the Festival City to launch his North American book tour at Fanfare Books. “Since the novel concerns itself with a bad year in the life of Will Shakespeare, what better place to hold the launch than in Stratford?” Carley said. RUFF, Carley’s fourth novel, is de- scribed as a theatrical odyssey packed with an pee cast of Elizabethan eccentrics. Suffering from a mid-life cri- sis, a plague aati and the death of the ancient queen, Shakespeare’s mettle is put to the test when the new king puts his witch-burning hobby aside to announce a national play competition that will deter- mine which theatre company will secure his favour and remain in business. As he struggles to write a Scottish supernatural thriller, Shakespeare faces one obstacle after another including a young, rival, punk poet and-his activist wife fighting for equality and a woman’s right to tread the boards. Shakespeare and his band of misfits must oy not only their own survival, but that o and as well. The stage is set for an ote ‘ageous and compelling tale of ghosts, ghostwriting, writer’s block and the chopping block. “Tt goes back, originally, to my second book, KINMOUNT, where the central character, Dave Middleton, who was a down-and-out Shakespearean director; wrote him as a descendant of an Elizabe- than playwright named Thomas Middle- ton,” Carley said. “We have evidence that Thomas Middleton possibly wrote some of the supernatural scenes with the witch- es in Macbeth and possibly added scenes during Shakespeare’s lifetime or after his death. That’s kind of fuzzy, but we know there was some kind of collaboration. “So, I thought that was kind of the mag- ic what-if. What would happen if I put these two characters together in a book. And if you look at it, there’s an age dif- ference of 17 years. Shakespeare’s turning 40, so I imagined, like many writers, he’s middle-aged, he’s having a mid-life de- pression, he’s got domestic troubles back in Stratford, he’s never home — his daugh- ters think he’s an uncle they see only at Christmas — and he’s grieving the death of SU “FROM THE AWARD WININING AUTHOR OF 6 4 oak (Or U' The book cover for award-winning author and former Stratford Festival associate director Rod Carley’s newest book, RUFF. his son, and his father’s just died. There’s a plague outbreak,-the queen died, so ev- erything is topsy turvy and he’s facing a lot of financial stressors. Then you add to it the new rival writers — the punk writ- ers — are coming up and they view him as ayesterday’s news.” Carley, who has directed Shakespeare’s lays and written about people directing Shakespeare and, now, about the man himself, said he wanted to humanize the larger-than-life playwright by portraying him as a man struggling with the same personal insecurities and fears of what the future will bring that many of us strug- gle with today. And while Shakespeare, as Carley writes him, is terrified of the supernatural, he teams up with Thorhas Middleton — a man obsessed with ghosts and witches — to help him write a play that appeals to the new King and the mon- arch’s own fascination with the occult. Carley purposely set his story at a time in history not unlike today. “The same way there’s no point in doing a Shakespeare play unless it’s accessible to audiences today ... there’s no reason to write a novel about William Shakespeare unless it’s fresh and it’s got something new to say. ... One of my quests in writ- ing this was ‘to also write a book that’s more modern than tomorrow. The book is set in 1604 ... but it’s amazing the simi- larities between what was happening then and what was happening now. . For example, Shakespeare was dealing with the plague; we are dealing with the pandemic. He was dealing with the hyper-conservative puritans who INTRIBUTED ee) Award-winning author and former Stratford Festival associate director Rod Carley wil launch the North American book tour for his new book, RUFF, at Fanfare Books in Sptionl Aug. 24. now had a majority in Parliament; we’re dealing with the crazy, right-wing evan- gelists in the States. We’re fighting global warming; during his era, they were fight- ing what’s called ‘the little ice age’ where the climate changes and everything got unseasonably cold. Fake news then; fake news now. . The homeless situation was terrible in Elizabethan society. They would go down to the ports and steal all the sails Ries the boats and they made makes camps in London. That’s not too far ae what’s happening right now.” While his novel is fiction, Carley did ex- tensive research to ensure it was ground- ed in real history, and he used whatever details we know about Shakespeare today — though there are few — as inspiration to BMIT YOUR LETTER TO THE EDITOR TO US! CALL 519-655-2341 OR EMAIL STRATFORDTIMES@ create a character and a story that seems possible, if not plausible. With this year’s Stratford Festival pro- duction of Something Rotten — another story featuring a fictionalized version of Shakespeare — in full swing, Carley said Stratford is the perfect place to launch his book tour. “I had an absolute blast writing this story and I think it will be great fun for readers whether you like Shakespeare or you don’t like Shakespeare,” Carley said. “You don’t need to have any kind of Shakespearean knowledge to pick up this book and read it. For more information about Carley, RUFF, or any of his previous books, visit rodcarley.ca. a@GMAIL.COM