SOURCE: Ditsky, John. “‘Such Meticulous Brightness’: The Fiction of Alistair MacLeod.” Hollins Critic 25, no. 1 (February 1988): 1-9.

In the following essay, Ditsky examines The Lost Salt Gift of Blood and As Birds Bring Forth the Sun and Other Stories, assessing their themes, style, and narrative techniques.

Alistair MacLeod (b. 1935) is a writer of fiction who is also a Professor of English Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Windsor (Ontario). Much of his early life was spent in Canada's Maritime provinces, specifically Nova Scotia, to which he returns as often as possible to devote the attention to his writing that his duties as a full-time university teacher and family man often will not allow him. Many of MacLeod's stories are set in these same Maritimes; moreover, all but one of them is placed somewhere in Canada, where he has over the past few decades established a considerable reputation...