Why Tokyo Police Club's Graham Wright loves re-reading Robertson Davies's Tempest-Tost
This interview originally aired on Oct. 1, 2018.
Graham Wright is the keyboardist for Newmarket, Ont.-based indie rock band Tokyo Police Club. Wright keeps coming back to Robertson Davies' 1951 novel Tempest-Tost.
Putting on a show
"My book is the great Robertson Davies's literary debut, Tempest-Tost. It's one of the classic 'putting on a show' stories. It's about a group of amateur theatre people in a town called Salterton which is a fictionalized version of Kingston, Ont. They're trying to put on their first ever outdoor performance of Shakespeare's The Tempest. And, of course, their lives and loves get tangled up in it and hilarity and drama ensue."
Read and repeat
"It's hard for me to think of just one part of this book that rises out above all others. This is the book that I read once a year. I was trying to remember the first time I read it and I can't even trace it back. It's always been in my brain. It's like visiting this really well-described, beautifully imagined fictional place with all these seemingly realistic people every year."
Graham Wright's comments have been edited and condensed.
