Fiction
Listen to Roy as he reads an excerpt from the book
Early Reviews of Macdonald
- "[An] engaging novel handled with imagination, sympathy and verve, making a hugely enjoyable read... Macdonald is no hagiography; but it vividly reminds us of his historical stature, like Disraeli a giant among smaller men... I can't wait for MacSkimming's next novel, on Wilfrid Laurier." - Mary Millar, The Globe & Mail
- "MacSkimming gives us imaginative access to a public life self-destructing... One can sense the author's pleasure in capturing factual detail...fun to read. MacSkimming makes Sir John a man you would have loved to have known and hung out with - brilliant, but wearing his erudition lightly; passionately pragmatic and unideological; clever but never cruel; self-serving, yes, but always dragging lesser mortals along in his usually beneficial wake." - Bronwyn Drainie, Quill & Quire
- "Macdonald is an excellent read, providing an artistically original yet historically authentic take on its title character.... This rich and very accessible novel is sure to contribute to Macdonald's timelessness for anyone who reads it." - Joseph Howse, Halifax Chronicle Herald
- "Author Roy MacSkimming took on one of the biggest challenges possible in Canadian literature: A novel about Sir John A. Macdonald." - Paul Gessel, Ottawa Citizen
- "[A] surprisingly gripping historical fiction...the book remains compelling thanks to MacSkimming's painstaking research."- Doug Sweet, Montreal Gazette
Advance Praise for Macdonald
- “For Sir John A. Macdonald, politics was a fever in the blood, and no one has caught that quality more movingly than Roy MacSkimming in his dramatic chronicle of the lion in winter’s final struggle. This is a singularly well-crafted novel that serves top place among the books on Canadian history that matter.” - Peter C. Newman, author of The Secret Mulroney Tapes
- “‘You’ll never die, John A.!’ they cried during Sir John A. Macdonald’s final campaign. In fact, he’s alive and well – thriving, amusing, brilliant, in love and at war – in Roy MacSkimming’s gloriously realized novel. Whoever said Canadian history is boring needs to be given this book. Macdonald and Laurier are superstars – and thanks to Roy MacSkimming’s storytelling magic, we gain a new appreciation of the great good fortune that made Canada possible.” - Roy MacGregor, author of Canadians
- “In this extraordinary novel, Roy MacSkimming follows Canada’s first Prime Minister and the keeper of tomorrow to his grave. A wonderful and intimate evocation of a political lion in winter in an Ottawa on the cusp of the 20th century.” - Aritha van Herk, author of Mavericks, An Incorrigible History of Alberta
- “Roy MacSkimming does for Macdonald what the history books have failed to do. He not only brings him to life, he brings him into our hearts.” - Nino Ricci, author of Testament
Availability
Macdonald is published in Canada by Thomas Allen Publishers, Toronto, at a suggested hardcover price of $34.95 CDN. Publication date is September 22, 2007. The novel is widely available through retail bookstores and online booksellers.
To arrange media interviews or public appearances involving Roy, please contact Director of Publicity Lisa Zaritzky at Thomas Allen Publishers, lisa.zaritzky@t-allen.com or (416) 361-0233, ext. 1.
For rights enquiries, please contact Roy MacSkimming’s literary agent, Dean Cooke, at The Cooke Agency, Suite 305, 278 Bloor Street East, Toronto ON M4W 3M4, Canada.
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Macdonald[About, Excerpt, Roy Answers Questions About Macdonald]
Macdonald is a fictional account of the final days of Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada’s indomitable first prime minister, published in September 2007. The publisher, Thomas Allen, writes:
“Roy MacSkimming’s Macdonald unfolds with the masterful dramatic flair of Gore Vidal’s novels on American political history. MacSkimming establishes Macdonald as an authentic original, rivaling George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Narrated by Macdonald’s young private secretary, Joseph Pope, the story opens with Sir John fighting his last great election battle on issues that uncannily echo our national concerns today. The year is 1891, and there is a very real danger of annexation by the United States. A political scandal in Quebec threatens to topple Sir John’s government. Exhausted by his electoral victory, the old leader struggles to keep his iron grip over his party and life itself.
“Joseph Pope renders his chief in intimate detail, revealing the intelligence, charm and immense personal magnetism that gave Macdonald such mastery over people and events. The narrative features a memorable cast of characters ranging from President Ulysses S. Grant to Louis Riel and Sir Wilfrid Laurier. It also offers a fascinating portrait of Macdonald’s family – his feisty second wife Lady Agnes, his conflicted son Hugh John, and his disabled daughter Mary. As the novel moves majestically towards his final hours, Sir John himself addresses the reader directly, reflecting wryly on his life’s triumphs and tragedies
“Convincingly grounded in the political and personal passions of the day, Macdonald delivers a brilliant portrait of a young emerging nation and its greatest champion. At once seductively evocative and emotionally engaging, this is historical fiction at its best.”
Roy and the bronze statue of Sir John A. by Jeremie Giles at Macdonald-Cartier International Airport, Ottawa. Photo by Bruno Schlumberger, Ottawa Citizen
Excerpts
Here are two excerpts from Macdonald. The first is in Joseph Pope’s voice. Sir John, lying in his sickbed in Kingston, has been reminiscing about his late first wife, Isabella, and their son, “little John A.,” who died in infancy:
“Sir John?” Given his reflective mood, I realize this may be the opportune moment. “I wonder if you’ve given any thought – that is, if you’d consider it desirable – to writing your memoirs? Your own account of an exceptionally long and lustrous life in government?”
“You mean, get it all down while I can still breathe?” He cocks a shaggy eyebrow and grins rakishly up at me. “I suppose you’re right, Joe. Someone will have to do it. But it can’t be me, I’m still living the damned lustrous life!”
“And yet you, sir, are the indispensable source.”
“I’m not sure about ‘lustrous.’ Many would say the vessel got badly tarnished with use. But there’s no denying I’ve been Prime Minister a devil of a long time. Longer than either Gladstone or Disraeli, eh?”
“Sir, no statesman alive has greater reason to compose his memoirs.”
“Now that’s enough flattery. I’ve had various collaborators proposed to me, as you know – but you’re the writer, Joe. You’re as eloquent as Goldwin Smith, that old parasite. I’m just a bletherskite compared to your way with words.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Oh yes, you’re the man to rehabilitate my life for posterity, no doubt about it – omitting the seamier interludes, of course. No one else knows me so well, apart from Agnes. So I regret to tell you, Joe, you’re it. Even old Dawson, the Queen’s Printer, thinks so. Just wait, if you don’t mind, till I’m out of harm’s way and no longer in a position to meddle with the truth.”
“Sir John,” I protest, “it’s you who flatter me. I can only hope to be worthy of the honour. And if you’re quite willing,” I add practically, “it would greatly facilitate my work if you’d jot down an aide-mémoire of the principal events as you recollect them. I entered your service just nine years ago, remember – a full generation after most events took place. I know them only indirectly.”
“I suppose, I suppose. If I ever get time.” And that trancelike expression steals over his face once more, the same look he had when conjuring up poor drugged Isabella and doomed little John A.
“The merest sketch, Sir John. Nothing taxing. The high points, nothing more.”
I exult silently.
The second excerpt is narrated by Sir John himself:
Arming myself with a bottle of porto fino and stoking the fire, I settled down comfortably in my study. I took a reviving sip or two, picked up my Trollope, and immersed myself by the light of my reading lamp in the quaint doings of the pink-cheeked vicars and genteel ladies of Puddingdale and Plumstead, while the wind peppered the French doors with icy grapeshot.
After a chapter or two the storm seemed to grow louder. I looked up to see how bad it was getting and was startled to make out through the frosted panes the dim outlines of a man. Without being conscious of it, I’d heard his rapping on the glass. He was standing in our little yard and wearing a square fur hat. I knew instantly who he was. Despite a mild sense of shock, I didn’t think twice about admitting him.
Riel hesitated as I flung the doors open, clearly alarmed that I was inviting him inside. Perhaps he suspected Northwest Mounted Policemen lying in wait behind the bookshelves. He stepped across the threshold in a gust of snow, gave me a swift nervous glance, and removed his ice-crusted hat, revealing a great deal of wavy dark-brown hair. His eyebrows and dense beard were frozen white, and he pulled out a hanky to wipe his face. Although his nose was hooked like a hawk’s beak, his full lips were pink and smooth as a baby’s. He was still a young man.
“Forgive my intrusion, Sir John.” His accent was marked but his English rapid and correct. “I wish only a brief word.”
Roy MacSkimming Answers Questions about Macdonald
- Q. Why did you choose Sir John A. Macdonald as a subject for fiction?
- A. I wanted to rescue him from the ten-dollar bill. We Canadians carry John A. around in our pockets every day, but we seldom take a good look at him. Who was he, really? Who was this man without whom Canada wouldn’t exist? Apart from the cliche that he was a drunken rascal, we don’t know him. And yet Macdonald not only created Canada, he was a complex and fascinating human being who inspired great love and great hatred in his own time. He profoundly shaped this nation over its first quarter-century of existence. He was the father of our country, and we all need to know our father.
- Q. Did you have any more personal reasons for writing Macdonald?
- A. Once I discovered a strong personal sense of connection with Macdonald, I wanted to share my discovery with others. I began to feel I knew him when I read Donald Creighton’s great two-volume biography, written in the 1950s. Creighton was a historian who recognized the incredible drama of Macdonald’s life and the richness of his character. Coming along half a century later, I wanted to bring Macdonald to life for our times as Creighton had, but through the medium of the novel, which taps directly into our personal imagination. Not incidentally, the Creighton volumes had belonged to my father, a Scot and a great lover of Canada. Writing Macdonald became a quest for the personal as well as the national father. When I put words into Sir John’s mouth, they came out in my father’s brogue.
- Q. The novel’s chief narrator is Joseph Pope, Macdonald’s private secretary. Why did you decide to tell the story through his eyes?
- A. Because Pope was always there, day and night, at Sir John’s side. He saw and heard everything. He could be a reliable witness to events, both political and personal, whether inside the Cabinet room or inside Earnscliffe, Macdonald’s home. In that sense Pope is a bit like Conrad’s Marlow or Nick Carraway, narrator of The Great Gatsby. After nine years in Macdonald’s service, Pope knew him intimately, and this is above all an intimate portrait of the man, up close and personal. Pope also wrote the most important biography of Macdonald until Creighton, and he left behind his own memoirs. I had a trove of Pope materials to draw on. He was a keenly observant and insightful man, and a very good writer, considering he was a lifelong public servant. He would later establish the Department of External Affairs and have a long and distinguished career, so at the novel’s end I’m able to throw the narrative forward thirty years and provide a certain distance on what’s gone before.
- Q. Where does a female perspective come in?
- A. We see a lot of Macdonald’s second wife, Agnes. She was a force to be reckoned with and a powerful influence on Sir John, even if he didn’t always take her advice – and it was always freely given. I’ve portrayed their abiding love for one another, which I think was one of the things that kept him going strong so late in life. We also meet their disabled daughter, Mary, who was born hydrocephalic but emerges by the end as an interesting and independent person in her own right.
- Q. Does Macdonald take any liberties with history?
- A. It’s a novel, after all. Fiction and non-fiction take different paths to truth. Yet I’ve based Macdonald on a substructure of historical fact, and some of the dialogue is extracted from the historical record – including whole scenes set in the House of Commons. As I mention in an author’s note at the end, scholars will recognize at least three major scenes that I invented out of whole cloth. Actually there are more than three. On the other hand, I found no reason to alter the political events of February to June 1891, when the action of the novel takes place, or the physical details of John A.’s illness, death and funeral, including the Ottawa weather at the time. All these details are based on research I did at Library and Archives Canada. So there’s a lot of history in the book, but the story and the characters come first.
- Q. One of the main characters is Louis Riel. Yet in 1891 it was six years after he’d been executed.
- A. Yes, so I had to invent devices to make Riel present. One of these is the occasional insertion of Macdonald’s own narrative voice recalling the past. I don’t think it’s a stretch to imagine Riel weighing heavily on his mind and conscience during his final days. Riel weighs on us to this day. And he’d been Macdonald’s nemesis for fifteen years. I also don’t believe it’s a stretch to give John A. a conscience. He was a man of empathy and compassion, even though he could be ruthless when he had to be politically.
- Q.Wilfrid Laurier is another main character.
- A. He’s the perfect foil to John A. – his great political adversary, yet heir to his legacy of governing Canada successfully through a moderate coalition of English and French interests. Laurier is the subject of my next novel.
- Q. Will it be similar to Macdonald?
- A. It will blend fiction with history in a similar way, but in other ways it will be different – edgier and more personal, and narrated mainly from a female point of view. It’s called Laurier in Love.