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Alistair MacLeod
In 1779, driven out of his home, Calum McDonald set sail from the Scottish Highlands with his extensive family. After a long, terrible journey – leaving Scotland a husband and a father he arrives in Canada a widower and a grandfather – Calum settles his family in ‘the land of trees’ until they become a separate Nova Scotian clan: red-haired and black-eyed, with its own identity, its own history. It is the 1980s by the time our narrator, Alexander McDonald, tells the story of his family: a thrilling and passionate story that intersects with history: with Culloden, where the clans died, and with…
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Alistair MacLeod was born in 1936 and raised in Cape Breton, Nove Scotia. MacLeod is the author of two short story collections, The Lost Salt Gift of Blood (1976) and As Birds Bring Forth the Sun and Other Stories (1986) and the novel, No Great Mischief , published in 1999. Written over the course of thirteen years, No Great Mischief won numerous Canadian literary awards and the 2001 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. All of his published short stories, plus one new piece, were collected in Island , published in 2000. He teaches at the University of Windsor, Ontario.
topAbout the Book
In 1779, driven out of his home, Calum McDonald set sail from the Scottish Highlands with his extensive family. After a long, terrible journey – leaving Scotland a husband and a father he arrives in Canada a widower and a grandfather – Calum settles his family in ‘the land of trees’ until they become a separate Nova Scotian clan: red-haired and black-eyed, with its own identity, its own history. It is the 1980s by the time our narrator, Alexander McDonald, tells the story of his family: a thrilling and passionate story that intersects with history: with Culloden, where the clans died, and with the 1759 battle at Quebec that was won when General Wolfe sent in the fierce Highlanders because it was ‘no great mischief if they fall’. Looking back from a diminished, blighted modern world, Alexander remembers the great stories of his people and their battle with the land and the endless Canadian winter: loggers, miners, drinkers, adventurers, men forever in exile, forever tied to their clan and a lived history.
topAlistair MacLeod interview/review
amazon.co.uk September 2000
- In many ways you have written a Canadian novel. Do you imagine that Canadians might read the novel differently to readers elsewhere?
I think in the UK the novel would perhaps appeal strongly to people of Scottish ancestry because it deals partially with events in Scotland. But I think that what makes the novel so popular throughout the world is that it seems to deal with families, with unity, maybe with special loyalties, and we all know that as we become more homogenised and globalised.
- Before this you published two volumes of short stories. How was the experience of writing a novel different? And did you feel some kind of need to write a novel?
I think that the obvious difference – or the difference that I felt – was that the short story, in athletic terms, is like a 100-yard dash. You can try to be intense for a while and then you are done. And I thought of writing a novel as a marathon that would go on and on and on. I like to have a quality of intensity in my writing and I was able to achieve this pretty well, I think, in the short stories. When I tried for the novel I wasn’t sure that I could be this intense for 26 miles as opposed to 100 yards. I wrote the novel because I thought I needed a bigger canvas, because I wanted to deal with more characters, more complex ideas, and I did not think I could do it in 10 or 20 pages.
topStarting Points for Discussion
- The characters in No Great Mischief speak in various languages (including French, Gaelic and English). How does the novel explore the relationship between language and memory?
- Alexander is told many stories by his grandparents. How do ideas of myth and storytelling function in the novel? To what extent is No Great Mischief part of an oral tradition?
- Clann Chalum Ruaidh finds its roots in exile. Do you think that the younger characters feel any less exiled than their ancestors? How does the novel resolve the tensions between feelings of exile and feelings of belonging?
- Is it fair to say that No Great Mischief, with its loggers, miners, and desperate male characters, is a very masculine novel? Does it alienate the female reader? How well developed are MacLeod’s female characters?
- Discuss the relationship between history and loyalty that is explored in the novel.
- The novel deals with themes of family and tribal identity. Is there any room for the individual in the landscape of No Great Mischief?
Other Books by Alistair MacLeod
Island
These slow, beautiful stories – resolute and resonant – are small masterpieces…
No Great Mischief
In 1779, driven out of his home, Calum McDonald set sail from the Scottish …
Suggested Further Reading
- The Shipping News ~ E. Annie Proulx
- Cape Breton Road ~ D.R. MacDonald
- Bettany’s Book ~ Thomas Keneally
- Fugitive Pieces ~ Anne Michaels
- Mercy Among the Children ~ David Adams Richards