Publication Day
Poor Man’s Opera is a radical reimagining of Shakespeare’s play Measure for Measure, and written in a faux Shakespearean language mixed with modern colloquialisms, a smattering of French and hip hop, as well as Mayoff’s own invented rhyming slang.
The novel takes place in a remote future where Canada is known as the Northlands and has been annexed by the Free Republic of America, its authoritarian neighbour to the south. Where there used to be provinces and territories, there are now a handful of self-governing city-states spread throughout a wilderness ravaged of its natural resources.
The story is set in the city-state of New Old York (at one time Toronto) and narrated by a gender-fluid Tarot reader who is an unofficial advisor to a high-ranking politician.
Upcoming is a musical side project related to the lyrics that appear in every chapter of the novel, a soundtrack that functions as an innovative promotional tool and a concept album in its own right.
Praise for Poor Man’s Opera
“A fabulous fable of politics, identity and love where no-one and nothing is what you (or they) expect, where the reveal is a revelation, the transformation is sexual and the sex is transformational, where operatic surprise, comedy and drama are the stage for a serious examination of modern power and policy, Poor Man’s Opera is a wit-quickened card trick of a novel.”
Gary Barwin - author of Yiddish for Pirates, winner of the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour and the Canadian Jewish Literary Award, and The Comedian’s Book of the Dead
“Steven Mayoff’s audacious new novel, Poor Man’s Opera… is at once a dystopian fable, a Tarot reading, an opera libretto in narrative form, a sustained linguistic performance, and, at its sturdiest spine, a rewriting of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure in speculative Canadian dress.”
Dr. Amy Tucker - The Third Shore (substack)
Reviewer-in-Residence
Let RSW founder, publicist and award-winning writer Hollay Ghadery tell you the rest:
"As part of our mission to celebrate amazing books from small presses in Canada and champion a variety of approaches to and perspectives on literary criticism, we’re delighted to announce we’re kicking-off a Reviewer-in-Residence (RIR) program. Each RIR term will last six months and come with a honorarium.
Our inaugural RIR is the wonderful Steven Mayoff. Not only is Steven a small press CanLit author, but he is a champion of small press titles, and has been championing books with us since the very beginning.
For Steven’s first review, he looks at Realia (poetry) by three-time Saskatchewan Book Award winner Michael Trussler. Realia was published earlier this year by Saskatchewan’s spectacular little press on the prairie, Radiant Press."
From Steven's review: “The reality of poetry is its ability to speak to a part of ourselves that is asleep much of the time. When that part awakens, what is real and what is metaphor can seem indistinguishable. A sense of unreality enters our belief systems, altering how we see the world. The poetic world of Realia by Michael Trussler (Radiant Press, 2024) takes nothing for granted.“
Click here to read the full review.
For more info on River Street Writing's RIR program, feel free to send them a message through the contact form on their website.
Miramichi Reader and Book Trailer
And my publishers, Radiant Press, have released a great trailer for the novel. Things are getting exciting!