From Our Editors
Canadian literary master Alistair MacLeod has
spent 13 years rewriting, editing and perfecting this extraordinary
tale of Scottish immigration to Canada. No Great
Mischief begins in Scotland in 1745 with the fateful
revolt on Culloden Moor, when several clans began their exodus to
Cape Breton and the Hebrides. The book traces the often violent,
always stirring history of Scots in Canada. Through unequalled
prose and craftsmanship, MacLeod paints a portrait
of a people that are a huge part of Canada's history and culture.
From the Publisher
Alexander MacDonald guides us through his family's mythic past as
he recollects the heroic stories of his people: loggers, miners,
drinkers, adventurers; men forever in exile, forever linked to
their clan. There is the legendary patriarch who left the Scottish
Highlands in 1779 and resettled in "the land of trees," where his
descendents became a separate Nova Scotia clan. There is the team
of brothers and cousins, expert miners in demand around the world
for their dangerous skills. And there is Alexander and his twin
sister, who have left Cape Breton and prospered, yet are haunted by
the past. Elegiac, hypnotic, by turns joyful and sad, No Great
Mischief is a spellbinding story of family, loyalty, exile,
and of the blood ties that bind us, generations later, to the land
from which our ancestors came.
From the Jacket
Alexander MacDonald guides us through his family''s mythic past as he recollects the heroic stories of his people: loggers, miners, drinkers, adventurers; men forever in exile, forever linked to their clan. There is the legendary patriarch who left the Scottish Highlands in 1779 and resettled in "the land of trees," where his descendents became a separate Nova Scotia clan. There is the team of brothers and cousins, expert miners in demand around the world for their dangerous skills. And there is Alexander and his twin sister, who have left Cape Breton and prospered, yet are haunted by the past. Elegiac, hypnotic, by turns joyful and sad, "No Great Mischief is a spellbinding story of family, loyalty, exile, and of the blood ties that bind us, generations later, to the land from which our ancestors came.
Employee Review Michele LibrarieSmith # 579, Montreal, PQ
This is one of the most eloquent books I've ever read. MacLeod is a flawless writer. His prose and story are so well thought out that I did not suffer the slightest bit of annoyance while reading it. It flowed like the glacial water streams of the Rockies: pure and smooth. Even when I was reading the more vile and violent parts of the novel, I was still impressed with the grace of the storytelling. Brilliant. The lives of the characters of Scottish ancestry in this Cape Breton town are so moving that anyone who reads it cannot help but like this book.
About the Author
Alistair MacLeod was born in North Battleford,
Saskatchewan, in 1936 and raised among an extended family in Cape
Breton, Nova Scotia. He still spends his summers in Inverness
County, writing in a clifftop cabin looking west towards Prince
Edward Island. In his early years, to finance his education he
worked as a logger, a miner, and a fisherman, and writes vividly
and sympathetically about such work.
His early studies were at the Nova Scotia Teachers College, St.
Francis Xavier, the University of New Brunswick and Notre Dame,
where he took his Ph.D. He has also taught creative writing at the
University of Indiana. Working alongside W.O. Mitchell, he was an
inspiring teacher to generations of writers at the Banff Centre. In
the spring of 2000, MacLeod retired from the University of Windsor,
Ontario, where he was a professor of English.
He has published two internationally acclaimed collections of short
stories: The Lost Salt Gift of Blood (1976) and As
Birds Bring Forth the Sun (1986). In 2000, these two books,
accompanied by two new stories, were published in a single-volume
edition entitled Island: The Collected Stories of Alistair
MacLeod. In 1999, MacLeod's first novel, No Great
Mischief, was published to great critical acclaim, and was on
national bestseller lists for more than a year. The novel won the
International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the Dartmouth Book Award
for Fiction, the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award, The
Trillium Award for Fiction, the CAA-MOSAID Technologies Inc. Award
for Fiction, and at the Canadian Booksellers Association Libris
Awards, MacLeod won for Fiction Book of the Year and Author of the
Year. No Great Mischief was also a
finalist for the Pearson Canada Reader's Choice Award at The Word
on the Street.
Alistair MacLeod and his wife, Anita, have six children. They live
in Windsor.
Hardcover
240 Pages, 6 x 9 in
September 15, 1999
McClelland & Stewart
English
0771055676
9780771055676