It’s the story of a young boy, dubbed Spud because his body hasn’t developed, which enthralled young and old alike. Spud might have been set at an elite boys’ only boarding school in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands, but the series’ fans were drawn from old codgers who went to any kind of boarding school to pre-teen girls swooning at Spud’s antics and those of the Crazy Eight, his madcap friends.
For John Van de Ruit, it was the absurdity of Spud’s life that lent itself to a universal appeal that endured for a decade, becoming a phenomenon that would both change his own life forever and humble him.
The books are biographical, in genesis if not trajectory, for Van de Ruit was a boarder at Michaelhouse in the Midlands, albeit on a cricket bursary.
“I wasn’t nearly as clever as I made Spud out to be,” he says, “but I had to find a way of putting him there.”
Writer and main character are close though.
“He’s my soul, I suppose, a recreation of my youth, but this doesn’t mean that everything is true. Some of the things are true, some are embellished. Not all of it happened to me either,” he admits.
Other characters, like Spud’s maniacal parents and insane grandmother, “Wombat”, were all inspired by Van de Ruit’s own relatives. The only one who was left out was Van de Ruit’s sister.
“She’s a bit bleak that I never made her famous,” he grins.
Wombat, spud’s heroically politically incorrect, if slightly addled gran, was based on Van de Ruit’s own grandmother. She died before the first Spud was published in 2005.
“I think I captured her very accurately. I might have been a bit more squeamish if she’d still been alive,” he admits.
The real Wombat died of Alzheimer’s, but lives on in perpetuity in the four-part series and Van de Ruit wrote the first three books from her flat.
His dad, David van de Ruit, had a manic energy, which, coupled to his being accident-prone, was a great starting point to create Spud’s eccentric father. Van de Ruit senior, a manufacturer’s representative, would find himself mobbed by Spud fans the length and breadth of KwaZulu-Natal as he travelled on business, happily signing books for fans as “Spud’s dad”.
He was more than a muse to his son though.
“He taught me cricket and golf and instilled a love in me for fishing,” Van de Ruit remembers.
“He was always the first person I would go to with the finished manuscript. He was also part of the inspiration for the character, his short fuse, his passion for his kids.”
But, as Van de Ruit, explains, while the inspiration for the characters might have been based on fact, the eventual versions were greatly embellished, often grossly so for effect.
“I’m an exaggerator, it’s what I do when I tell a story, I always add my 10 percent to make it funnier, punchier.”
When Van de Ruit senior died last March, his death almost scuppered the final instalment in the series.
“I wasn’t sure how I was going to do it. I wasn’t sure I could be funny again.”
In a bid to get away, to make sense of his loss, Van de Ruit and his partner, Jules, took off for central Africa. There on the banks of Lake Malawi, on the balcony of a dilapidated villa, he paid tribute to his dad with what would become the bawdy, unforgettable frontispiece for Spud, Exit Pursued by a Bear.
“I wrote 15 000 words in a matter of days. I started processing the grief and the fun returned.
“I didn’t want any sense of death in the book (unlike the original Spud) but to rather capture the possibilities of the great unknown that beckon for Spud as he completes his final year at school.”
The manuscript was finished in November and then Van de Ruit began a process of editing and tweaking to get the comic timing spot on before finally releasing it to the printers six weeks ago.
Now, after 18 months of a hermit-like existence, he’s getting ready for a three-week publicity blitz – a prospect that excites him as much as scares him.
He’s spent 10 years writing Spud in a journey that took him from being a respected actor and critically acclaimed playwright, in KwaZulu-Natal particularly, to South Africa’s most successful modern author.
The journey hasn’t changed him, he’s humble and self-effacing, there’s no entourage or sunglasses after dark, something he ascribes to growing up in KZN.
“Durban’s got a way of keeping your feet on the ground. I mean even Hashim Amla (South Africa’s record-breaking Test cricket batsman) just walks around the shopping malls when he’s in town, like everyone else.
“Cape Town is also very laid back. The only place I ever feel famous is when I go to Johannesburg as part of the book publicity and you go into a function and feel mobbed as hundreds of fans are there all waiting to speak to you and get their books signed.”
The doomsayers predicted that Spud 1, which hit the shelves in September 2005 and became a phenomenon by Christmas, would peak and burn out by February. The opposite happened; it went on to sell more than 250 000 copies and has never gone out of print since.
“It was a triumph just getting published,” says Van de Ruit, “I was thrilled when it hit 20 000.”
That wasn’t all the book did; the film version five years later found itself landed in controversy when respected Aids activist and Supreme Court of Appeal Judge Edwin Cameron launched a bitter attack on the film for being homophobic, slamming Cleese’s character for encouraging corrective rape of lesbians.
Van de Ruit remains puzzled and saddened by the episode.
“As far as corrective rape is concerned, I’m not saying Judge Cameron didn’t have a point, I’m just still not convinced Spud was the correct battleground to fight it.”
Both the books and the film survived and now Van de Ruit is pondering life beyond the franchise. He’s not ruling out a return to the theatre with his old friend and collaborator Ben Voss and Aaron McIlroy, who plays Spud’s dad in the film. They make up a three-man ensemble known as the Insanity League. Another option is penning a screenplay about a 30-something South African comedy of manners, after his experience helping convert his books to film.
One thing is certain, the Spud era is over.
“For now though, it’s time to say goodbye. I always knew what the end would be; I always only wanted to do four books; two of him as a junior and two as a senior.
“When I started out, I was a huge fan of Harry Potter, but by the fifth or sixth book, my interest had fizzled out. With Spud I wrestled long and hard about setting the scene for a post matric year, like I did at Michaelhouse, or even going to university.”
But as the books got bigger and the fans keener, Van de Ruit realised his original instincts had been correct. Whether Spud went to four, five or even six books, there would always be fans clamouring for more.
“Although I’m aware that nothing I ever write in the future might ever match the phenomenon that Spud became, I want to believe the best (in my life) is still to come and that Spud is just the start.”