Excerpts from the interview.
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Q: How did this book come about?
A : The novel is set on the Isle of Harris, part of the Outer Hebrides, which is an archipelago of islands off the northwest coast of Scotland. They're quite far away from the mainland and, over the centuries, have grown up with their own culture and their own identity. And each of the islands is slightly different because they've been in isolation for a long time. But I was a young man who grew up in poverty in Glasgow, and so my experience of Scotland was very limited. I'd never really seen much outside of the city I was raised in. In 2019, when I was waiting for ‘Shuggie Bain’ to publish... I thought, I have to start a new piece of work or else I'm going to go out of my mind with anticipation and anxiety. And so I said, I'm going to go to the Outer Hebrides because maybe there's a story there... I was connected to two people on the islands. And by the time I left 12 weeks later, I knew hundreds more. And the project really just started as a conversational project. People would bring me into their homes, they would make me tea, they often made me pancakes. They would stop whatever they were doing and we would just sit around the kitchen table and chat. And I came away with hundreds of hours of audio recordings of just people getting to know each other. But it was during that time that the book was born.
Q: When you talk about the senior John being the weaver and then encouraging his son to join hi m , i t is a description of somebody who is not just documenting the textiles. It is somebody who dearly loves the art of craftsmanship .
A : It was a joy to finally be able to write about it because I have two degrees in weaving... It was such a joy to write about working class men, farmers, making a thing of beauty... And of course, they're very invested in colour. All of their concept and reference for colour have to come from the islands. Not only are the colours inspired by the flora and fauna of the place, but also their language about it only comes from the land underneath their feet. As someone who lives in a city today, I think of colour as a very global thing. I think about Japanese snow blossoms and I think about all the rich colours of India. But of course, the islanders don't think like that. They think only of what they can see right outside their door. And so, it's really a story about a place...
Harris is famous for being this mountainous place that was deforested centuries ago. And the lunar landscape of the east coast of Harris is built on just bedrock with a very thin layer of soil. But the rock is a rock called anorthosite. And then there's a very special type of mica. And they say that it is only found in Harris and on the moon. And there's one hill in Harris that's covered in red garnets, semi-precious stones. The folklore says that the earth and the moon used to be lovers. And when they had their last kiss and the moon ascended to the sky, she poured her tears back down on earth. And those are the red garnets that scatter over Harris. How could you not write about that?
Q: You explore masculinity with such deep and delicate tenderness.
A : One of the things that I thought was just fascinating about people is the islanders themselves are very gentle, very considerate, very community-focused, and yet Presbyterianism is a hard faith. They are, by their own admission, choosing a hard path to God... But underneath that is a very gentle, kind people. And so the tension between those things for me was fascinating. But part of the reason for wanting to write the book is I didn't have a father. My father left my mother when I was 4 years old. And so I think I wanted to write a novel about a father and son, to imagine what that relationship could be, even if it's fraught. Even if it's tense. I wanted to see if I could make these men really love each other and really test that love between them.
Q: How did you produce the title?
A: There is John of God and always the Bible runs through the work. But one of the things I learned on the island is family names echo on for centuries. Because children are often named after their parent or their grandparent, it means that when you meet someone and say, ‘hi, I'm John MacLeod’, an islander would think, I know 150 John MacLeods. They often have to say to you, who do you belong to? And for Cal... he says, I'm John of John of Iain of Iain of Breabadair, which is the old Gaelic word for the weaver... A big through line in all my work is the idea of, do we get to be individuals within community, or is the ask for community always conformity? You know, can we belong if we want to, also not pay the price of conformity in this place? And for Cal, will he ever get to be his own man, or will he always be of John, all throughout his life?
Q: T he other thing which comes through is how you position it at the intersection of sacred and secular.
A : I'm not a man of deep faith myself, but I have a deep respect for it. I almost admire it in a way, because I wish I had it and I don't... But I never believe the idea that people of faith are no
