SOURCE: Charles, Ron. “The Strong Branches of a Scottish Family.” Christian Science Monitor (15 June 2000): 17.

In the following review, Charles applauds MacLeod's achievement in No Great Mischief, outlining the novel's narrative structure.

Modern life is a careless archivist. The ways we used to record ourselves have been replaced by convenient cheats. Flimsy videotape has superseded the more secure photo album. Ephemeral e-mail threatens to erase letters that survived for centuries. To complicate matters, education and employment constantly split even the most cohesive families.

Against such ravages, Alistair MacLeod's new novel, No Great Mischief, is a valediction forbidding mourning, a gorgeous celebration of family nostalgia and its staying power.

For members of the sprawling MacDonald clan, history began in 1779 when Calum MacDonald fled the troubles of Scotland for the New World with his wife and 12 children. Over the next 200 years, their family tree grows so thickly that every descendent lives...