No Great Mischief

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1999

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Chapters 25-27Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 25 Summary

In the summer, the mining work advances rapidly. The ethnic groups retreat again to their isolated corners of the camp, and gradually, rumors begin to circle that the death of Alex’s cousin was not an accident. Clann Chalum Ruaidh grow suspicious of the French Canadians. Alex wonders what his life would have been like had he spent the summer in Halifax, where he’d been offered a research grant. He feels a certain guilt might have compelled him to help his family members after the death of his cousin.

Chapter 26 Summary

Between mining shifts, Alex and his brothers reminisce about their youth. They swam in the sea and drank from a freshwater pool, and they recall a time when their Grandpa ventured across the ice to bring them hay for their horses. It was during a storm, and their Grandpa, drunk on rum, sang Gaelic songs to the horses as they moved the heavy load. On the return journey, the old man falls asleep and trusts the horses to guide him home in his sleigh. He wakes to find himself still on the ice, facing dark churning water. He scrambles back to the home on the island, badly frostbitten. The horses and the dog arrive on the mainland later. The next morning, people see the abandoned sleigh on the ice and grow confused. They eventually recover the sleigh and the old man remains on the island for a few weeks to recover from the frostbite. The story helps Alex and his brothers to reflect on their family.

Chapter 27 Summary

The sun shines on Toronto as Alex continues his quest to buy his brother alcohol. He decides to buy beer and offers his change to an old man outside the store, whom the shop assistant shoos away. The heavy beer cuts into Alex’s fleshy hands, and he remembers his brothers’ callouses, which grew so thick they could hardly make a fist.

He returns to his brother’s apartment, where Calum has washed his face. As Calum drinks, Alex refuses, mentioning that he has to drive home and go out for dinner later that evening. They talk about the weather, past and present, and dirty jokes their Grandpa told.

Calum tells a story of a recent encounter with a French-Canadian miner who spotted him from across the street. They had worked at the uranium mine together, and they offered to take Calum to America, where there is a great deal of lucrative work. He refuses, and eventually, the police move the French Canadians along. Alex announces that it is time for him to go. He leaves a roll of bills on the table and departs from Toronto. The city seems less congested as he leaves.

Chapters 25-27 Analysis

At several points in the novel, Alex hears stories from numerous perspectives. In the above chapters, he listens to his brothers telling stories about his grandfather. Although he knows the story, he is interested in how their perspective differs from his own. The emphasis of the story is placed on the loyalty and the hard work of their Grandpa, who almost died bringing them hay during a bad spell of weather. When the old man tells the same story, it becomes an anecdote or a joke, with plenty of references to the genitals he almost lost in the cold. These competing narratives inform Alex’s life, giving him new perspectives on familiar characters.

Similarly, there is a contrast between the Calum who exists in the past and in the present. In the present, he is a struggling alcoholic who can barely hold his hand still. In the past, he was a rugged individual and the leader of the clann Chalum Ruaidh while on the mining site. He negotiates the pay rates and watches over his family. These different perspectives inform the contrasting views of Calum.

Alex struggles to reconcile the past version of Calum with the man he knows in the present. When they reminisce about their Grandpa in the present, it seems more tragic and is through the lens of nostalgia. Before, Calum reminisced because he was in awe of his Grandpa’s dedication to his family, whereas in the present, Calum reminisces because his longs for the time in his life when he was not struggling so much.