SOURCE: MacLeod, Alistair, and Leah Eichler. “Alistair MacLeod: Of Scotsmen in Canada.” Publishers Weekly 247, no. 17 (24 April 2000): 54-5.

In the following interview, Eichler focuses on No Great Mischief, situating the novel within the context of MacLeod's life and career, with commentary from the author.

Even before Alistair MacLeod's first novel, No Great Mischief, was released in Canada last year, the story of its origins had made its way into the annals of publishing folklore.

According to legend, McClelland & Stewart's publisher, Douglas Gibson—impatient after waiting 13 years for a first novel by MacLeod, an accomplished short story writer—one day grew fed up and sped down the highway from Toronto to Windsor, a small Canadian city across the border from Detroit. He then rushed to the University of Windsor, where MacLeod has been teaching creative writing and 19th-century literature for the past 30 years, and snatched from the professor a manuscript...