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KINMOUNT added to Top 23 Books to Read This Fall

Fiction We Can’t Wait to Read This Fall
By Kerry Clare

We give you a list of amazing fall fiction along with the REAL reasons we’re looking forward to these books in order to demonstrate that human-generated lists beat algorithm-generated lists any and every day. And we also liberally employ the royal we….

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Rod Carley in conversation with Mike Jaycock

Rod Carley’s new book is a hilarious romp through the trials and tribulations of amateur summer theatre in a small rural town. Almost as good as going to a live performance and definitely a great read.

Excerpt from Kinmount

This is an excerpt of Kinmount by Rod Carley (Latitude 46 Publishing), presented in partnership with moorehype.

They pulled into Lola’s driveway at three p.m.

She greeted them in a floral one-piece jumpsuit that would’ve given Eartha Kitt pause.

“Hey kids!” she gushed, wobbling down her cobblestones. “Come on in. Cocktails are on.”

“Lola, we’re tired. Let’s get them unpacked first,” said Dave.

“Nonsense,” she insisted, ushering the pair up her front steps.

He pulled B.J.’s bike out of the hatch and left it on the lawn to be assembled. He then wheeled Miranda’s bike around back, prudishly leaning it against the fountain (Professor Murray wouldn’t be thrilled knowing that his daughter’s bike was chained to a cement penis.) Lola’s garden was a neo-classical nightmare, featuring a disturbing cluster of homemade phallic sculptures. Disturbing enough to cause Socrates to swallow hemlock prematurely.

He lugged her suitcases to the front foyer and heard laughter emanating from the dining room.

“Fifty drunken goat-clad priests dancing around a giant phallus, can you imagine it?” Lola was saying.

Plop went the jalapeño peppers for emphasis.

“You telling your choric dithyramb stories again,” Dave said, entering the candlelit room. More wax dripping than usual. Lola had regaled him with her colourful account of Greek mythology during his last stay. The choric dithyramb was the orgiastic ascendant of car key swapping sugar bowl parties in the 1970s. In ancient Greece, fifty drunken goat-skin priests danced around a giant phallus chanting odes to Dionysus, the God of Swingers.

“I’m enlightening our young thespians on the backyard.”

“I think you’ve enlightened this room enough. Can we not blow out a few candles? It’s stifling in here.”

“Do you two mind them?” she asked, refilling her drink and pouring him a martini.

“House rules,” B.J. said diplomatically, wiping a bead of sweat off his brow.

“They’re lovely. So romantic,” Miranda gushed.

“B.J., can you do something with your turnips, please? Bury them in the backyard or something,” Dave said while exiting to the kitchen to pour his drink down the sink.

“You can put them in the fridge in the basement, B.J.,” Lola offered.

“Thanks.”

“Through that door,” she gestured. “Switch is at the top of the stairs.”

B.J. and Chickpea grabbed his turnip bundle and disappeared. Dave was unsure of what to make of B.J.’s purple parrot hand puppet. He’d developed an uneasiness around puppets after surviving the ill-fated Green Eggs and Hamlet children’s tour.

“So, my sweet little thing, tell me about your father,” Lola grinned, refilling Miranda’s glass.

“Lola, she just got here. Easy on the third degree,” Dave jumped in, returning from the kitchen.

“Nonsense. Is he handsome? A Byron I bet.” Lola’s eyes lit up.

“He’s more of a Somerset Maugham. It’s his favourite author. His specialty at U of T. He’s obsessed with our inability to control our emotions. He says it constitutes bondage.” Miranda answered with a detectable strain in her voice that Dave picked up on.

“Ah, I see. ‘It is an illusion that youth is happy,’” said Lola, quoting Of Human Bondage. “You concur?”

“I’m happy most of the time,” Miranda replied, twiddling the pepper in her glass.

“Of course you are and so you should be—such a pretty little thing. I could eat you with jam.”

“Lola!” Dave exploded.

“What? We’re just getting acquainted aren’t we, dear?”

“Yes. Is there a washroom I can use?” asked Miranda.

“Up the stairs, my dear. The lavender door. Cranberry towel set is for you.”

“Oh, that’s so nice. Thank you.” And she left the room.

“Don’t look at me that way.”

“Lola, please go a little easy until they get to know you. Miranda is not one of your student boarders.” God knows what went on there, he thought. “I don’t want her calling her father and telling him she danced naked around a hedge cock on her first night.”

“Your first reading isn’t until three tomorrow. Let them have some fun tonight.” She picked out a bottle of scotch from behind the bar.

Your idea of fun and the rest of humanity’s are very different,” he replied matter-of-factly.

“If you’re going to be like that, why don’t you just go to your room and mope.”

“I want them working on their scripts tonight and rested for tomorrow. Please, set an example,” he said, taking the bottle from her.

“Fine,” she snorted and stormed out of the room. He heard her clumping up the stairs, slamming her bedroom door.

“Shit,” he muttered to himself.

“Have you been down there?” B.J. asked, dusting himself off as he emerged from the cellar.

“No. I have a thing about basements.”

“Fifty heads hanging on the wall. A wild boar, a black bear, a huge moose.”

“She used to hunt. With a crossbow.”

“That’s messed up.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Even a cougar with a pair of boxers in its mouth!” exclaimed Chickpea, back in action.

“Fitting.” Dave thought of the Nurse on the prowl on a Saturday night. “The Hemingway suite she calls it. Lola’s a little on the eccentric side. In case you hadn’t noticed.”

“Ah, she’s harmless,” Chickpea squawked in a high-pitched vibrato. “Yeah, she’s harmless,” Dave repeated the phrase, chewing on an ice cube.

B.J. sat down and rolled a joint with Chickpea.

“You might want to take that outside.”

“Right,” said B.J. and Chickpea together. Dave wondered how that was even possible.

The trio retired to the backyard.

“Where’s Miranda?” asked B.J.

“Washroom.”

“Don’t worry. I only toke at night,” B.J. volunteered, sensing Dave’s uneasiness.

“Good. I didn’t want to have to ask,” Dave said. He quickly changed the subject. “Not exactly a garden that fosters tea and scones.”

“Only if Oscar Wilde were a guest,” Chickpea joked while B.J. inspected his herbs.

“Yeah, don’t bring that up. Lola will want to have a séance.”

They shared a laugh.

“Hey, guys.”

Miranda joined them, pulling her hair away from her mouth.

“This place is so cool. Do you know there’s a mobile with cherubs copulating hanging in the bathroom?”

“At least there isn’t lipstick scrawled on the mirror,” Dave said.

“Oh, but there is.”

“What?”

“A greeting. ‘Welcome thespians. May love blossom in these rooms.’”

“Great,” Dave said hotly, opening the back-screen door and entering the kitchen.

“Please don’t fret. I think she’s lovely,” Miranda shouted after him.

“She’s just eccentric,” Chickpea offered up, flapping his wings. He passed the joint to Miranda who didn’t decline.

The sound of a bell ringing and getting closer pierced the evening quiet.

A gunshot rang out from the front yard, followed by a boy’s scream.

The trio raced to the driveway only to see Lola brandishing a pellet gun and screaming at a terrified Dickie Dee ice cream boy cringing on the sidewalk. His front tire was shot out. Other neighbours were opening their front doors.

“I’ve warned you three times. Don’t ring that fucking bell in front of my house!” Lola wailed.

The Rod Carley Interview

Rod’s first novel, A Matter of Will, was a finalist for the 2018 Northern Lit Award for Fiction. His non-fiction short story, ‘A Farewell to Steam’, was featured in the anthology, 150 Years Up North and More. His short story, ‘Botox and the Brontosaurus’, is featured in Cloud Lake Literary’s inaugural online review. Rod is also an award-winning director, playwright and actor, having directed and produced over 100 theatrical productions to date including fifteen adaptations of Shakespeare. He is the Artistic Director of the Acting for Stage and Screen Program for Canadore College and a part-time English professor with Nipissing University. Rod was the 2009 winner of TVO’s Big Ideas/Best Lecturer competition. Kinmount is his second novel.

When did you get the idea for Kinmount as a novel? Did it start out as something smaller?

Rod Carley: I got the idea for Kinmount six years ago after finishing my first novel. I had a few free-lance out-of-town directing experiences in my thirties that landed in The Twilight Zone.  I came up against producers who were being cavalier – playing fast and loose with the playwright’s intent. They pressured me to make changes to “serve their audience.” I couldn’t and wouldn’t do it. I quit two gigs as a result rather than cave into misguided censorship. I felt I was the only advocate for the dead or absent playwright. At the time, I couldn’t believe it was actually happening. I made a mental footnote that one day I’d use these experiences in my art. I didn’t know it would be in the form of a comic novel years later.

From the beginning, I knew Kinmount was going to be about a stage director fighting a small town conspiracy and doing battle against censorship. I have borrowed incidents and reworked them until they became fiction. I believe you write most convincingly when you write in your own voice. I choose humour as a way to get readers to consider issues that are more serious – I attract them with sugar. A funny novel isn’t any less serious than a serious novel, it just uses a different stage to get its message across. Pun intended.

What is your all-time favourite Shakespeare play and why?

King Lear would be my home run hitter. I’ve directed it twice – twenty-four years apart.

Despite centuries of cosmic reverence and academic worship, the play is essentially a tale about the fractured relationship between a man and his daughters. Shakespeare reassures us that dysfunctional families are the norm.

The scenes, in which a mad Lear rages naked on a stormy heath against his deceitful daughters and the world around him, resonate with me. Knocked out of complacent old age, he learns to embrace the human race and faces life’s big questions – questions we all have about our mortality.

Lear reminds us how close we all are to teetering on the edge of the abyss. Whether we fall or find balance depends on how well we play society’s game and respect those social relationships around us. We each have an individual responsibility to society. It connects us to our humanity. When we leave materialism behind and go inward, we do discover that nothing does indeed bring us all things.

I have directed Romeo and Juliet twice. It is a terrifically well-constructed play. Probably the first drama in which it all came together for Shakespeare. His first truly great play that paved the way for his master works.

Our society loves to know what goes on behind the scenes – it’s almost a standard now for any television or film property – to have a behind the scenes look at the sets, etc.

What do you think our fascination is with seeing beyond the final product, to getting a glimpse of the fourth wall coming down?

A marketing agency would probably call it “exclusivity.” Understanding a director’s thoughts and passions brings an extra element to a movie or play, so that when an audience member is watching it, they can feel that they know a little bit more than what others see. We love feeling special.

Going behind the scenes also educates the audience on the length and depth of work involved, allowing for a deeper understanding and appreciation of a movie or play. It is a fantastic tool to engage and connect with an audience.

In a novel, it gives the reader a chance to connect with the author on a personal level. It makes the characters relatable, approachable, and more human.

As a person with an extensive background in theatre, how has this informed your writing?

My directing process is similar to my writing process. I look at the characters in a play and ask: What do they want more than anything?  What do they have to lose?  What gets in the way of them achieving their objective? How are they changed by what happens in the play? As a writer, I ask the same questions.

Writers need to ask themselves what their novel is about (theme). You don’t have to know this when you start writing. You may find out only when you’re done.  But you have to keep asking. You should be able to answer it with very few words.

Fear.

Freedom.

Betrayal.

Love.

Family.

Growing up.

Getting old.

Anything good is always many things, but there’s always one main thing. The same holds true for directing a play.

For Kinmount, one word to describe its theme would be:

Passion.

I’ve structured the novel in four theatrical acts:

Meeting.

Madness.

Method.

Measure.

How does your geographical environment play into your writing?

It is impossible to define exactly how a place influences a writer. But there are clear parallels of feeling between my writing style and the Northern Ontario landscape in which I am a resident. Both are uncompromising, share challenging elements to be reckoned with, dare my creativity, and require humour in order to cope.  The loss of passenger rail service in North Bay is a good example. Here one day, gone the next – like most things in Northern Ontario.

Was Shakespeare a better comedian or better as a tragedian? 

Shakespeare could do it all. Imagine an amazing musician who can play anything and wins a Grammy in all categories – rock, folk, classical, hip-hop, country, and rap. Each style of drama Shakespeare touched (be it tragedy, comedy, history, romance, sonnets), he gave it his own unique stamp, becoming the Renaissance’s ideal representation of that style.

Who are some of your favourite authors?

As a young reader, I embraced Kurt Vonnegut’s satiric literary style. His writing tends to be minimalist and dry, avoiding wordy run-on sentences. I connected with his themes of social equality and need for common decency. I admire the autobiographical works of David Sedaris. I like his simplicity, self-deprecating wit, keen observation of everyday anecdotes, and the obsessive behaviours of his characters. Terry Fallis is always entertaining. I enjoy his good-hearted humorous whimsy, mischievous sense of irony, and witty dialogue.

I am a big Mordecai Richler fan. He remains an important influence on my writing – his wry social commentary, attacks on the hypocrisies of contemporary life, and his blending of acerbic sarcasm with obscenity. He would have a lot to say about the world today. I dig Christopher Moore. He sees his characters like his children. I enjoy his daffy sensibilities, love of the bizarre and comedic supernatural experiences.  I was fortunate to have John Metcalf edit my first novel. He is a master short story writer and editor – I appreciate his vitriolic sense of humour and dark satiric sensibilities.

What advice would you give a writer just starting out?

Write what you know.  Use your past, your passions, and your obsessions. Write what you want to see.  “I wish someone would write a novel about an ice fisherman who wants to sing opera.”  Great.  Write it. Write characters you love and love the characters you write.  Even if they’re jerks, on some level we have to see their humanity, their vulnerability. Write more than you will need.  It’s easier to see what is essential and what is superfluous if you have lots to choose from. Kill your inner editor – at least for your first draft.  Most people never get started writing because they can’t get past the fact that most of what they write will not be good enough.  Know that at least half of what you write will be crap and another quarter will be mediocre.  Maybe 25% will be worth something.  Write without censoring, then walk away.  Sleep on it before you start to cut. There’s no one way to do it.  Improvise aloud. Write longhand, on a computer, in the middle of the night, first thing in the morning. You will discover your own process. Try to write daily. Give yourself a deadline. Above all, make it fun for you.  If it ain’t fun for you, it won’t be fun for the reader.

For more information on Rod Carley, click here. For more info on Latitude 46 Publishing, click here.

Rod Reads KINMOUNT

Kinmount is the last place Dave Middleton wants to revisit. But Dave has taken the gig – directing an amateur production of Romeo and Juliet for an eccentric producer in farm country.

Exciting News For 2020

Rod’s new novel, KINMOUNT, is being released in the fall of 2020 by Latitude46 Publishing!

KINMOUNT Synopsis

Dave Middleton is in for the ride of his life.  Kinmount is the last place he wants to revisit. But Dave has taken the gig – directing an amateur production of Romeo and Juliet for an eccentric producer in farm country. And there his quixotic troubles begin. From cults to karaoke, anything that can go wrong does. Add in a pesky ghost and a precocious parrot and the stage is set. In one hilarious chapter after another, Dave becomes the reluctant emissary of truth in a comic battle between artistic integrity and censorship.

Rod at LitLive

Rod reads A Matter of Will at LitLive on Sunday June 2, 2019, at the Staircase Theatre in Hamilton.

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Contact Rod

BOOK CLUBS! Rod is available for readings and signings, both in person and on-line. Contact him here to arrange your reading.

Invite me to speak at your festival, conference or book club:

705 477 1525 rod@rodcarley.ca Rod Carley rdcarley @carley_rod

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