The Work

by Maria Meindl

When aspiring stage-manager Rebecca Weir falls for the married director of the SenseInSound theatre company, she initiates a love triangle, and a working collaboration, which go on for two decades. Beginning in Toronto in the 1980s, The Work traces the rise and fall of SenseInSound. The director has the status of a guru within the company, and his disciples call their method The Work. Is he pushing people to creative heights or abusing his power? Is The Work a cutting-edge artistic practice, a road to personal healing, or a cult? And as his top deputy, is Rebecca complicit, or merely loyal? A historian trying to write about the company, many years later, has little to go on but internet searches –– that is, unless the women behind the man find a way to speak out.

Genres: Fiction

257 pages, Paperback

Published November 1, 2019

About the author

Maria Meindl’s first novel, The Work, was published by Stonehouse in Fall 2019. She is the author of Outside the Box from McGill-Queen’s University Press, winner of the Alison Prentice Award for Women’s History.

Her essays, fiction and poetry have appeared in many publications including The Temz Review, The Literary Review of Canada, Descant and Musicworks, as well as in the anthologies, At the End of Life: True Stories About How We Die and The M Word: Conversations About Motherhood. She has made two radio series, Parent Care, and Remembering Polio for CBC Ideas.

Maria founded and continues to run the Draft Reading Series which specializes in unpublished work by emerging and established writers.
She teaches movement in Toronto.

Reviews

[Jill S · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Work captured me from the first page and I was compelled to the very end. Using different forms of internet communication (blogs, emails, videos, Facebook comment threads) to mark the passage of time, I very much enjoyed watching Rebecca commit to The Work, find meaning and purpose, but also slowly question and struggle with her belief in it and in Marlin.

I appreciated the way Meindl's approach to The Work left a lot of grey area. Is it a cult? Is it a bunch of passionate people finding true meaning? Is it only a cult if you give yourself over to the leader completely?

Easy to read, well developed characters easy to empathize with - really enjoyed my first book from Maria Meindl and Stonehouse Publishing!

[Robin Pacific]

This is an intense and sometimes disturbing account of a theatre director who is also a cult leader.
I used to be in theatre and can relate to the thrilling sense of discovery and invention in "the work".
The narrator, Rebecca, is addicted to the director who is emotionally abusive, and it later turns out, sexually abused other female members of the group.

It's well written and paced, and kept me engaged throughout.

Excellent read for anyone who's been caught up with a charismatic leader, or been in an emotionally abusive relationship, or just anyone with an interest in theatre and how art can be an obsession.

[Jade Wallace · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love how Meindl uses various media and modes to tell the story. Not everyone's great at incorporating emails or advertisements into a book in a narratively compelling way, but she is!