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Original Essays | April 29, 2013
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No Great Mischief (Vintage International)by Alistair Macleod
Staff Pick
I regret coming so late to Alistair MacLeod, this guy can really write! His style and sentences are deceptively simple, and the book itself seems too small to contain all the heart he plows into it. He's been publishing for more than 30 years, but has only completed two short story collections and one novel. When you read MacLeod, you'll recognize why it takes him so long to finish a story ? they are all little pieces of perfection, no fat, no pretense, just elegant writing and human stories with wonderful characters. I hate sentimental schlock, and what continues to amaze me about MacLeod is his ability to tread so deftly on that sharp edge between the heartfelt and the sentimental, never falling into simpering abyss. If you like the kinds of stories Alice Munro, Eudora Welty, or Hemingway write, MacLeod is for you. Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:Alistair MacLeod musters all of the skill and grace that have won him an international following to give us No Great Mischief, the story of a fiercely loyal family and the tradition that drives it.
Generations after their forebears went into exile, the MacDonalds still face seemingly unmitigated hardships and cruelties of life. Alexander, orphaned as a child by a horrific tragedy, has nevertheless gained some success in the world. Even his older brother, Calum, a nearly destitute alcoholic living on Toronto's skid row, has been scarred by another tragedy. But, like all his clansman, Alexander is sustained by a family history that seems to run through his veins. And through these lovingly recounted stories-wildly comic or heartbreakingly tragic-we discover the hope against hope upon which every family must sometimes rely. Review:"There are phrases in Seamus Heaney's poem 'The Seed Cutters' which partly express what MacLeod does with his Macdonalds: 'compose the frieze / With all of us there, our anonymities.' No Great Mischief is more complex than a frieze, but has that kind of starkness. MacLeod writes with such 'simple' lucidity as is achieved only by mighty efforts in, one suspects, the wee small hours. The book is pervaded by humour and colour, intensely vivid, and very, very moving." Angus Calder, The Independent
Review:"This extraordinary novel, telling the story of the substantial branch of the MacDonald clan that settled on Cape Breton Island off Nova Scotia, offers every satisfaction except an ending as quietly mighty as what has gone before." Adam Mars-Jones, The Guardian
Review:"One of the great undiscovered writers of our time." Michael Ondaatje
Synopsis:This novel weaves together the story of a Scottish man who sets sail with his wife and 12 children for Cape Breton in 1779 and the tale of his descendant, who struggles with family loyalty 200 years later on the same bleak landscape.
Synopsis:Alistair MacLeod musters all of the skill and grace that have won him an international following to give us No Great Mischief, the story of a fiercely loyal family and the tradition that drives it.
Generations after their forebears went into exile, the MacDonalds still face seemingly unmitigated hardships and cruelties of life. Alexander, orphaned as a child by a horrific tragedy, has nevertheless gained some success in the world. Even his older brother, Calum, a nearly destitute alcoholic living on Toronto's skid row, has been scarred by another tragedy. But, like all his clansman, Alexander is sustained by a family history that seems to run through his veins. And through these lovingly recounted stories-wildly comic or heartbreakingly tragic-we discover the hope against hope upon which every family must sometimes rely. About the AuthorAlistair MacLeod was born in North Battleford, Saskatchewan in 1936 and raised among an extended family in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. His early studies were at the Nova Scotia Teachers College, St. Francis Xavier, the University of New Brunswick, and Notre Dame, where he earned his Ph.D. In his early years, to finance his education he worked as a logger, a miner, and a fisherman. Dr. MacLeod is a professor of English at the University of Windsor, Ontario. He has also taught creative writing at the University of Indiana and the Banff Centre. He lives with his wife and six children in Ontario, and still spends his summers in Cape Breton, writing in a cliff-top cabin looking west towards Prince Edward Island.
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