Product Description

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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #148018 in Books
• Published on: 2001-04-03
• Released on: 2001-04-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Amazon.com Review
For the MacDonalds, the past is not a foreign country. This Cape Breton clan may have lived in the New World since 1779, when Calum Ruadh ("the red Calum") and his wife, 12 children, and dog landed. Scotland, however, remains their true home. So profound is their connection to their lost land that on brief visits they find themselves welcomed by strangers. When one descendent tells a Scotswoman that she's from Canada, she is offered a gentle rejoinder: "That may be.... But you are really from here. You have just been away for a while." In some ways this is unsurprising, since the MacDonalds either have deep black hair or their ancestor's coloring. And those with the latter have "eyes that were so dark as to be beyond brown and almost in the region of glowing black. Such individuals would manifest themselves as strikingly unfamiliar to some, and as eerily familiar to others." Another sport of nature? Many are fraternal twins, including Alistair MacLeod's narrator, Alexander, and his sister.

But No Great Mischief is far more than the straightforward saga of one family over the generations. Instead the author has created a painfully beautiful myth in which the long-ago is in many ways more present than modern existence. Even in the last decades of the 20th century, the MacDonalds fall into Gaelic--its inflections, rhythms, and song--with deep nostalgia. This is a family that is used to composing itself in the face of disaster. They often assure one another, "My hope is constant in thee," and in the light of their many losses, the clan must cling to its motto.

No Great Mischief begins with Alexander's visit to Toronto, where his eldest brother now subsists on a diet of drink and memories. The narrator, a successful orthodontist, doesn't have much to do with the former but is unable (or unwilling) to escape the latter. As the novel proceeds, Alexander fills in his family history, including such key episodes as his great-great-grandfather's self-exile from Scotland. Though Calum Ruadh had intended to leave his dog behind, it broke away and tried to catch up with him. MacLeod piercingly captures the animal's struggle as her master first tries to make her head for shore and then--realizing she won't desert him--spurs her on. Throughout No Great Mischief various people recall this incident, an emblem of intensity, hope, and dependence. A descendant of the bitch is also on hand when Alexander's parents and one of his brothers disappear under the ice on a cold spring night. She persists in searching for her people and tries to protect their lighthouse from the new keeper, receiving in return "four bullets into her loyal waiting heart." When Alexander's grandfather hears of her death, he uses a phrase that becomes one of the book's litanies, "It was in those dogs to care too much and to try too hard."

This is a MacDonald characteristic as well. A good deal of No Great Mischief's strength stems from scenes of longing and despair--for those who die for a lost cause, whether in 1692 when one leader is killed ("the redness of his hair dyed forever brighter by the crimson of his blood") or in an Ontario uranium mine where one brother is decapitated. MacLeod evokes his clan, and the elemental beauty of their landscape, in quiet, precise language that gains power with each repetition. (A sentence such as "All of us are better when we're loved" comes to acquire a near proverbial ring.) If he occasionally tips his hand too much, pressing home his point that present-day prosperity isn't all it's cracked up to be, no matter. I doubt that this inspired and elegiac novel will ever leave those who are lucky enough to read it--proving after all the persistence of the clann Chalum Ruaidh. --Kerry Fried

From Publishers Weekly
MacLeod, a Canadian of Scottish lineage, has earned a sterling reputation north of the border based on two collections of stories (Barometer Rising; As Birds Bring Forth the Sun), and with his first novel he will only add to that acclaim. Already a bestseller in Canada, No Great Mischief (the title comes from General Wolfe's callous reaction to the death of Highlanders enlisted in Britain's efforts to wrestle Canada from France--"No great mischief if they fall") tells the sprawling story of one Scottish clan, the MacDonalds, who come to Cape Breton from Scotland in the 18th century and struggle valiantly to maintain their pride and identity up through the end of the millennium. The narrative is in the hands of a rather staid Ontario orthodontist, Alexander MacDonald, who comes to Toronto to aid his alcoholic older brother, Calum, who is down on his luck in a shabby rooming house and in need of company and a supply of liquor. The two will eventually drive to their beloved Cape Breton where the family patriarch is buried at the edge of a cliff, and along the way the family saga is relived, retold, recast. Alexander, it turns out, was orphaned at age three, along with his twin sister, when both parents fell through the ice when returning to the lighthouse where Alex's father was the keeper. His three much older brothers were already on their own, fishing off the Breton coast, tangling with French-Canadians in mineral mines, drinking hard in bunkhouses, while the twins are raised in relative comfort by doting grandparents. Calum, who seems to carry the legacy of the original Calum MacDonald (who lost his wife on the voyage from Scotland in 1779, leaving him with six children, to which he would add six more), is the dark light, like a bottle of whiskey, through which MacLeod's account is refracted. What emanates is a loving retrieval of a people's native strategy of survival through history and across a changing landscape. Though at times the narrative is confusing, it is cannily so: there are three Alexander MacDonalds to keep track of; there are familial ties that seem filial, then avuncular and then estranged. But the overall effect is authenticity, and the lack of irony is as bracing as the cold spray of the North Atlantic. (May)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
From the moment Alexander MacDonald sets out along Highway 3 in southwestern Ontario to visit his alcoholic brother living in a cheap Toronto lodging house, this sturdily textured debut novel never hesitates or meanders. There are plenty of diverse characters, changing scenes, and gripping incidents to keep it rolling. Four generations of MacDonalds move through the pages of this bookDfrom the first to arrive in Cape Breton from Scotland in 1779 to narrator Alexander, an orthodontist, and his siblings. MacLeod, who has been heralded in his native Canada as a master of the short story, exhibits a remarkable ability to create and handle an intricate plot that goes back and forth between past and present. Though sentimentality plays a considerable part in the unfolding of the drama, MacLeod's clever writing disciplines and subdues it. The book deserves to be a big popular success.DA.J. Anderson, GSLIS, Simmons Coll., Boston
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

A Canadian Grapes of Wrath
I was suspicious when I read the early acclaim for this novel, but just having finished reading it myself, I have to agree that this is a masterpiece and will be one of the novels that people will remember for a very long time. The quality of prose is so intelligent in this work, the story is so moving and encompasses so many different experiences in such an imaginative manner. The book is incredibly life- affirming and it not only speaks to the experience of one community of people as Steinbeck's great novel did decades ago, it also speaks to the entire experience of being an immigrant in the New World. I can't wait to read this book again. It's magnificent.

"Chointhe, lochran aigh nam bochd."
When more familiar sounds are heard, the above becomes, "Look, the lamp of the poor." The lamp is the moon and the reference encompasses what those may do when the moon is bright that otherwise would require the means they do not have.

This is a beautifully written story of the MacDonald Clan that spans nearly three centuries in length. How Mr. Alistair Macleod conveys this epoch of this Family in such a relatively short work (283 pages) is enigmatic. The Author accomplishes this in part I believe by using not only the words he needs, but the most appropriate as well. The reading is so rewarding because the Author gives you so much to absorb, to ponder, and at times to puzzle over.

Prior to this work Mr. Macleod published two books of short stories that I have not read. Another Author stated, "He is one of the great undiscovered writers of our time." A heady endorsement, but one I cannot argue with. Other reviewers have made reference to some literary talents whose work has become timeless and by extension classic. I agree without reservation.

This book joins some others that never seem to receive the public acclaim they are due. I thought of "The Banyan Tree", and "Life Is So Good", and also "No News At Throat Lake". It may be that these books don't have a publicity machine behind them, and if that is the case it truly is a loss to readers.

One of the wise Elders in the story says." Music is the lubricant of the poor. All over the world. In all the different languages." Books like these and the people who write them provide the same comfort, encouragement, and incentive for readers to go on reading when there seems to be less books of this caliber offered.

False muses, the French Ships that never came, and the body that moves inland while the heart was left at the sea. This is a book that will move and satisfy, and keep looking for the next great Author you have yet to find.

Absolutely outstanding! Read it!

If you love Frank McCourt, you'll love this
Stellar writing by one of North America's greatest living writers, this novel is loaded with the same kind of emotional authenticity, lush language and courage as ANGELA'S ASHES. MacLeod brings the mythic, the historical and contemporary experience together in a way that is magical, poetic and yet unpretentious. MacLeod is also a wonderful antidote to the American writers who, I'm told, describe my experience. MacLeod is not Joyce Carrol Oates or E.L. Doctorow, thank God.