Spadework by Timothy Findley.
New York: HarperCollins, 2002.
$24.95 — 404 pp.

“Lust. Infidelity. Betrayal. Murder.”

The above description sounds like the trumpet call for a regiment of clichés that might be used to describe everything from Shakespeare’s Hamlet to the Clinton White House. Since these words open the publisher’s description of Timothy Findley’s Spadework, and since Spadework also touches frequently on both Shakespeare and the Bill-and-Monica debacle, perhaps the groping publishers — I mean groping for words, of course — have by their description attempted to link Shakespeare to Clinton to Findley. If so, these connections prove a dismal failure, as does, ultimately, Spadework itself.

Findley sets his story in the annual Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Ontario; Findley lives in Ontario and so gives the readers many fascinating details about the festival, its participants and history. His descriptions of the town and the steamy Canadian summer are intriguing, particularly for readers unfamiliar with this part of the world.

The story may be condensed as follows: Jane, Griffin, and their 7-year-old son, Will, lead happy lives in Stratford. Griff is on his way to the top as an actor, Jane is a respected set designer, and their son is—what else?—a brilliant boy with a large vocabulary. Their lives seem charmed until their phone line is accidentally cut by their gardener, a local man whose uncle will prove to be a serial killer and who will fall in love with Jane’s maid. Griff misses a phone call that might have changed his life. The telephone repairman, whose own wife is a religious fanatic and whose infant son is dying as a result of that fanaticism, is so beautiful that he tempts Jane into seducing him. Griff in the meanwhile sleeps with a director named Jonathan who has blackmailed him. Will withdraws from both his parents and seems on the edge of a breakdown.

In the end, however, everyone ends up relatively happy. Jane and Griff reunite; Will instantly loses the hostility that he has felt toward his parents for infidelities; Jonathan becomes more human after his son is murdered in South America; the uncle of the gardener conveniently commits suicide; the gardener enters into a relationship with the maid; and the telephone repairman continues to “survive.”

What Findley does well in this novel is to present characters of the theater world. They seem caricatures in some ways — self-obsessed, competitive, bitchy — but Findley is of the theater himself, causing us to realize that some caricatures, like some prejudices, contain some degree of truth. Possibly as a result of his experience in the theater, Findley is also a master of dialogue. Here is Jane learning from her friend Claire that her husband has slept with Jonathan.

“Oh, God, Claire. Oh, God. You have to tell me it isn’t true. It can’t be true. It can’t.”

Claire sat back. “Well,” she said, “I’m sorry to have to say this — but it is true.”

Jane stared at her.

“You’ve known?”

“Yes. For over a week. Well over two weeks.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Janey ... how? How could I tell you that?”

“You’re my friend.”

Read those lines aloud, and it’s hard to find a false note in them. All of Findley’s dialogue reads the same way.

Unfortunately, the narrative of the book is weak in its analysis of the characters and is often written like dialogue. Such construction uses up lots of paper and does make the book accessible to readers who graduated from third grade, but insights into character and motivation are limited. Here again is Findley, describing the death of a little boy:

Dawning.

Milos lifted his son in his arms.

How had this happened? What did it mean?

Nothing.

It was just the story of a life.

He carried Anton to the window.