Photo: historic cannon balls at the Plains of Abraham, Quebec CityAlistair MacLeod was born in Saskatchewan in 1936, grew up on Cape Breton Island, and was educated in New Brunswick and Indiana. He taught for a time at Indiana University before moving to the University of Windsor in Ontario, where he is now Professor Emeritus.
MacLeod's prose sings. A certain passage read years ago still sounds in my head, words that carried me to the quaking edge of life's mystery.
When the narrator of "The Boat" hears his father, a simple fisherman, sing for the tourists, he feels "ashamed yet proud, young yet old and saved yet forever lost." His legs tremble and his eyes weep, "for what they could not tell," and I remember my own father, dead nearly thirty years, and feel the same confused flooding of emotion.
No Great Mischief came out in 2001, an appropriate date, as this novel touched upon important aspects of twentieth century history including French-English tensions, as well as US involvement in the Vietnam War and the draft dodgers that came to Canada as a result. The novel also deals with ethnic isolationism among small cultural groups, symbolized by the community of Cape Breton miners he so poignantly portrays. The novel won the Impac Dublin Award in 2001. The story was later produced as a play.
The phrase itself comes from a letter written by General Wolfe, and refers to the Scottish fighters he intends to send first up the cliffs to the Plains of Abraham, saying that since he does not trust them anyway, "no great mischief if they fall."
Though MacLeod has not been a prolific writer, his work is polished, translucent and true, a precious gem of Canada's literary treasure.
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