Chris Eaton is the founder and lead vocalist of Toronto

Toronto

Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...

-based indie rock

Indie rock

Indie rock is a genre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom and the United States in the 1980s. Indie rock is extremely diverse, with sub-genres that include lo-fi, post-rock, math rock, indie pop, dream pop, noise rock, space rock, sadcore, riot grrrl and emo, among others...

 band Rock Plaza Central

Rock Plaza Central

Rock Plaza Central is a Canadian indie rock band. After a pair of glowing reviews from the influential music website Pitchfork Media, they have come to prominence as a major indie rock band...

, as well as a novelist.

Music career

Eaton began as a solo artist, with various musicians backing him, often using musical improvisation. In 2003, the current line-up of Rock Plaza Central formed during such a gig in Toronto, and they recorded their first album in that incarnation only a month later. Their second album, Are We Not Horses

Are We Not Horses

Are We Not Horses is an album by Rock Plaza Central. Despite being first released independently, the disc made many top ten lists for 2006, including #8 for CMJ Editor-in-Chief Kenny Herzog, Pitchfork staff writer Stephen Deusner and Americana-UK lead writer David Cowling...

, was favorably reviewed by influential music journal Pitchfork Media

Pitchfork Media

Pitchfork Media, usually known simply as Pitchfork or P4k, is a Chicago-based daily Internet publication established in 1995 that is devoted to music criticism and commentary, music news, and artist interviews. Its focus is on underground and independent music, especially indie rock...

.

Writing career

Eaton is also a published author. His first novel The Inactivist (2003), has been required reading on two university courses at McGill University

McGill University

Mohammed Fathy is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The university bears the name of James McGill, a prominent Montreal merchant from Glasgow, Scotland, whose bequest formed the beginning of the university...

 in Montreal

Montreal

Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...

, as well as a graduate English course at the University of South Alabama. His second novel, The Grammar Architect (2006), is a "cover" of a Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy, OM was an English novelist and poet. While his works typically belong to the Naturalism movement, several poems display elements of the previous Romantic and Enlightenment periods of literature, such as his fascination with the supernatural.While he regarded himself primarily as a...

 book, A Pair of Blue Eyes

A Pair of Blue Eyes

A Pair of Blue Eyes is a novel by Thomas Hardy, published in 1873.The book describes the love triangle of a young woman, Elfride Swancourt, and her two suitors from very different backgrounds. Stephen Smith is a socially inferior but ambitious young man who adores her and with whom she shares a...

, using some of the plot, imagery, themes and even some passages of the original and creating something new and personal out of that.