FFWD Weekly
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Wordfest by Harry Vandervlist It took an hour’s conversation, but finally I learned the most awful, terrible thing about Alistair MacLeod. You may know him as the critically acclaimed author of The Lost Salt Gift of Blood, No Great Mischief and Island. In person, however, MacLeod reveals himself to be nothing less than good-humoured, generous and free of the tiniest self-promoting taint. Faced with human decency on this scale, it suddenly becomes obvious how helpful even a little vanity or glibness can be in the writing of a profile article of this sort. If the man would succumb to easy oversimplification for even a moment, the job of providing peppery, compact quotations would be so much easier. But no. Author interviews, as MacLeod surely knows, offer a chance to demonstrate one’s discernment or plug a friend’s work. So who are his favourite authors? "I find it hard to name anyone in particular," he says, "because it seems every time you mention somebody you’re excluding someone else." Come on, now, such even-handedness will get us nowhere. Perhaps instead he’d like to discuss some of the many writers who were once his students, either at the Banff Centre (where he taught for 11 summers) or at his home university in Windsor? "I’m not gonna name names," he says, "but a lot of people came through there over those years." No doubt. And a little gossip might be fun, but again, no. What a calamity. Author fails to perform – to condemn, to praise, to judge. Author talks instead about the difficulty and complexity of making simple, intellectual judgments at all, when it comes to human affairs. This, though, is helpful, because an interest in this difficulty lies at the heart of his own storytelling. For instance, in discussing his most recent novel, No Small Mischief, MacLeod recalls telling people "I’m writing a novel about loyalty." The next question would be: So is loyalty good or bad? But in MacLeod’s view, you can’t answer that. "You can’t say yes, always; or no, never. That’s why I like the dogs." It’s at this point in our conversation that I realize that it’s particular, revealing narrative moments that strike sparks for MacLeod – not generalizations. Hence the dogs. In No Great Mischief, a family of lighthouse keepers are replaced by a new man and expelled from what’s become their home. Only their dog refuses to abandon their tiny island. Leaping from the boat, she swims bravely back. She gets shot for her trouble. "The thing I like about the dog, MacLeod explains, "is that instead of making a decision, she just is. That dog swims out to that island because she thinks it hers. Whether that’s stupid or not, that is an action that just is." Actions like that create images that resonate beyond logic or judgment. But MacLeod doesn’t use those words, he simply affirms that, "I think when you’re confronted with those images you never forget them." Through such dramatic images, MacLeod’s writing explores the lives of people moved and shaken by changes glamourized by terms like "globalization." But it’s not on the level of such concepts that he engages the world. Instead he’s fascinated by the stark dramas of labouring people, people "in occupations where you lay your body on the line every day." For people like the miners in No Great Mischief, a false move or a sleepy miscalculation can change a life. "I think of those mining men in the same way that you might think of good athletic teams," he says. "If you lose your eye, you’re not gonna pass the puck very well." It’s a world MacLeod can write about so sympathetically because it’s the world he comes from himself. Though known for his Cape Breton roots, MacLeod was born in Saskatchewan to a family moving in search of work. He moved at four to a now-vanished Alberta mining town near Edson. "People say to me, ‘Well, you were born in Saskatchewan,’ like they think like I’m a real Saskatchewan person," he laughs. "When really I’m just a product of people travelling back and forth."

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