Light Lifting [Hardcover]

The world that Alexander MacLeod's protagonists inhabit is not an easygoing or a comfortable one, it is - a realistic one. Set in different urban milieus, many of his characters are young, struggling to get ahead in life. Some confront personal adversity, hoping for companionship or friendship, others attempt to find solace and even redemption. With his debut story collection MacLeod exhibits an exquisite writing talent that succeeds in capturing, with precision and depth, both the inner workings of the individual's psyche and their social and physical circumstances. The back cover of the book describes the author - very aptly I find - as a writer of "ferocious physicality".

The majority of the seven stories are written in first person voices, drawing the reader intimately into each of the narrators' points of view on concrete experiences in their lives. In 'Miracle Mile', Michael, while preparing for an important international running meet, reflects back on his long friendship with his closest competitor. As children they already raced together, and sometimes, at night, they risked their lives by running through a cross-border train tunnel beneath the Detroit river. One dangerous run is so vividly depicted, that I felt myself holding my breath until I knew that the kids were both safely on the other side. In this and other stories the author describes in detail the material details that underpin any of his protagonists' physical activities: be it running, swimming, holing bricks, or manoeuvring a bicycle on the icy roads in winter.

While most central characters are young men and only very few women hold an important place in a story, the story of Stace in 'Adult Beginner I' stands out. We meet her when she stands high above the ground on a ledge, reluctant to follow the urging by her gang of friends to jump - as a dare - from a hotel's roof straight down into the Detroit river. It is a dark night and only a few lights can guide the direction of her fall into the water... a water that seems anything but inviting. Her deep-seated fear has a complex history that is told in flashbacks, going back to her first exposure, as a child, to the Atlantic Ocean and a wave that threatened her. MacLeod compellingly evokes Stace's memory: "The wall of water came into her vision, looming over her mother's shoulder like an old-style gangster thug sifting out of the crowd in a grey trench coat with a brim of his fedora pulled low down. He was so thick and so wide, he blocked out the sky. He shoved her mother forward headfirst into the sand before grabbing the girl and carrying her off in the opposite direction."

For me, Stace's challenge is one of the most affecting and richly developed stories in the collection. 'The Loop' is another remarkable story. The teenager Allan rides his bicycle to deliver medications and other drugstore supplies for old-fashioned pharmacist, Mr Musgrave. Over a period of three years, he gets to know a diverse group of customers - from nice, half-blind old Mrs McKay, to eighty-nine year old Mrs. Hume, to huge, spooky (youngish) Barney. His description of his interaction with his customers is meticulous and very perceptive. He knows that his customers' requests go beyond what a teenager should be asked and he learns more about their mental or other health conditions than he wants to be dealing with. He nevertheless experiences empathy, and in some cases affection, for his 'clients'. And one day, he surprises himself by his ability for compassion despite his reserve and even disgust. "The Loop" and 'Adult Beginner I' turned into my favourites in this collection. Their central characters illustrate a gentler touch and stand in contrast to the somewhat raw and dark emotions and physical aggressions that lie beneath many of the other stories. Overall, I find myself torn between my attraction to the author's excellent and precise writing and my limited curiosity as regards most of the topics he expands on and the characters who inhabit them. Other readers may well find others or all of the stories captivating.

Canadian author Alexander MacLeod was a 2010 Giller Prize finalist with this collection that also has been named "Book of the Year" by other institutions in Canada. He is the son of award winning Canadian writer Alistair MacLeod, who won the International Foreign Fiction Prize (IMPAC) in 1999 for his novel "No Great Mischief". [Friederike Knabe]

A book that came to my attention as a result of being on the Giller Prize shortlist and having a newfound interest for reading short stories, I also found myself close to this book as the author is from my home province and his father, Alistair MacLeod, is a legend of a Canadian author.

When I had the opportunity to hear Alexander MacLeod read in River John, Nova Scotia, I was very impressed by his dark telling of a portion of The Loop which told the tale of a young delivery man and his glimpses of life before death. I knew I was buying it before hearing this tale, I craved reading it after listening to such a brief portion of the book.

Each story weaved darkness and hope so wonderfully and simply for me that, as a writer, I appreciated, longed for and knew I could strive for. Although it captured the attention of Canadians like a rainy, mild day in winter, it was subtle enough to offer emerging authors hope of breaking into the short story readership.

Light Lifting concluded with heavy machinery which wasn't extremely well received by Globe and Mail's reviewer Jim Bartley, he too couldn't forget that that The Number Three was heavy hitting.

Each story was left in a way that the reader remained thinking and I for one enjoyed this as I still care and wonder about each stories characters. Now I just want Alexander MacLeod to come out with a new collection or his first full length novel.

Thanks for reading,

Sarah Butland

Short stories may not be everyone's cup of tea. Sometimes, particularly with first time authors, there is
an annoying tendency to be overly experimental. Not so with Alexander MacLeod's stunningly assured debut. True he has genetic "form" in that he is the son of novelist and short story writer Alistair MacLeod, but even so, the quality of this collection, is remarkable. The collection of seven stories is not overly themed, although certain issues and concerns do reappear, but what binds the stories together is a very human approach to adversity.

The collection kicks off with "Miracle Mile", a story of a young athlete prior to what he has determined will be his last race. His obsessional devotion to athletics is the first of a number of stories that feature characters that are in some way obsessed, either in the form of an activity such as here, or later in terms of phobias about water, driving or in one case a character who is a recovering alcoholic. The narrator's passion and devotion to the subject is completely convincing and the concept of a talented runner brings to mind a suitable metaphor for the whole book. The author appears to tell each story with the same apparent effortlessness that an athlete shows, but all the time you are aware that there is a kick just waiting to happen. He is a natural story-teller.

MacLeod is particularly adept at seeming to slow down the action and to investigate the issues leading up to a significant event. His stories don't get neatly tied up and often end just before what the story is leading up to. At first this can be a little disconcerting, but the effect I found was that this allows the stories to continue in the reader's mind long after you've finished the story.

Such is the consistency of the quality here that it's hard to pick out favourites, but if pushed, apart from the aforementioned "Miracle Mile", the two real stand out stories concern the protagonists facing phobias. In "Adult Beginner 1", Stace overcomes her childhood fear of water following a nasty experience in the sea, to learn to swim. But admirable though this achievement is, it leads to a shocking outcome to a particularly stupid sounding act of youthful adventure.

If Stace is to a large extent the victim of her own peer-pressure induced stupidity, the protagonist in the final story, "The Number Three" is perhaps slightly less culpable and the story is the most moving of the lot. Having spent years working in the car industry on the production line, a tragic car accident means that he no longer is able to travel in a car and so his touching need to return to the site of the accident some 30 miles from his house on the anniversary proves something of a challenge. True, he is not wholly blameless - he was the driver after all - but it is impossible not to feel your heart go out to him in his quest.

The least straightforward piece is the second offering "Wonder About Parents" that is more experimentally written concerning an outbreak of head lice but while it is heavier on style than most of the collection, it is still entertaining and perhaps one of the most overtly humorous. The story from which the book derives its title "Light Lifting" concerns a young student working a summer job on a small time construction gang. It's one of the shorter stories and wasn't one of the most enthralling, making it perhaps an odd choice for the collection as a whole.

"The Loop" also features a young kid working part time, this time a younger boy working as a delivery boy for a pharmacist until he comes face to face with a reality that he shouldn't have to face at that age, while "Good Kids" recalls a childhood friendship of sorts with a particularly strange neighborhood kid.

For me, a good short story always leaves the reader wanting more. On this evidence, I certainly want more Alexander MacLeod.