We recently sat down with John MacKay to discuss his fourth novel, Home.
What do you hope readers will take away from the book?
A sense of belonging. A lot of my writing is about identity, and the appreciation of what has gone before you to make you who you are. Who do you belong to? That was extremely strong in the culture in which I was raised. I was raised in the city, but with a very Hebridean influence. And I suppose what really drove Home was that I've always been quite obsessed with family history. And I think what I have learned through that family history, I suppose just stuff I've picked up over the years, stories I've heard from being a child, all fed into Home.
Where did your idea for a multi-generational story like Home originate?
Well, it came from the family history that I was raised with. I would say it's very much a Hebridean thing, but I'm sure other cultures have it as well. They talk about those who have gone before and generations to come, and often ask what your connection is to others – connections are a common word they use. So, I absorbed a lot of that as I was growing up. Then I took it further and started to actually research it. But most of Home doesn't come from research, it comes from stories that I heard and people that I knew. For example, Home has two brothers lost at war very early on. That happened to my family. Some of what happened to earlier characters is quite true to life. Mor going to Canada, for instance, is based on a true story. Alistair going to America and returning in old age is based on a true story. It came from things that I absorbed over many, many years.
That leads me perfectly into my next question, what sort of research did you do for a book?
As I started to explore the stories I’d heard as a child, strands came back. I did have to do some research, obviously. But I became very conscious of the fact that this isn't a history book. It's a story with a historical background. The historical developments are a backdrop; what's really of interest is the story of the individuals.
How did you come up with the names of the characters? Were some of them based on real people?
Part of the problem for the book was the names of the characters. That was a real challenge, because in families like that, the same name will be repeated time and time and time again. For example, I'm one of a long line of John MacKays. So, the problem there was making sure that the names weren't confusing. What you’ll find is that they're all Scottish. They had to be. They're all Hebridean. They had to be. But they also use a lot of nicknames because people have got the same names.
What came first, when you began working on Home, the plot or the characters?
Definitely the plot. It’s based on the house in which my mother was born. That house is still standing. And I was struck again, going back to this oral tradition of handing down family stories. I was very struck by the fact that so much had happened to the people of this house over the generations. And that was the starting point for it, so wars took people away from it, emigration took people away from it, people lived, loved, died, all of that, in this one house. And I've always been struck by the fact that when we talk about history, we talk about the big houses and the logs and all the politicians and all the rest of it. And most history books you look at that's, that's what you read about. I'm quite struck by the fact that history is actually lived by the little people, if you like. That came first that absolutely came first and everything else flowed from that.
Were you inspired by any particular books or writers or stories? I haven't read a book like this one before.
It's a strange thing, I’m more inspired by lyricists. In particular by the band Runrig. Are you familiar with Runrig? Runrig were famously called a Gaelic rock band, but they were a lot more than that. They became very prominent, but they didn't give up their culture. They sang about their culture. They would sing in Gaelic, for example. And had international success with that, not only in Scotland and in England, but also further afield. And the way they phrase things, the themes that they explored, that was a huge influence on me.
What would you say was the highlight of writing the book, like where there any scenes that you particularly enjoyed writing?
Writing is a discipline. I get quite a lot of pleasure from editing and developing it that way. The greatest pleasure as a writer is when you get into a scene, and it's just flowing; you're in a zone and it's just flowing. And that can happen at various points through the book. But that's balanced out by a lot of the times that you need to get this done. I remember seeing a brilliant phrase that every book has a beginning, a muddle, and an end. That's pretty much it. I know a lot of people kind of plan out their books, but that doesn't work for me. For me, I know where I know where I'm ending, and I know what I'm starting. But the flow comes when I'm writing it, and the ideas come when I'm writing.
Was the writing process for Home different compared to your other works, due to the multi-generational nature? Did you face more challenges?
Yes, because my challenge previously, in the three fiction books I’ve written for Luath, was making it long enough. Whereas strangely, with Home, it was completely different. I was editing it down, because I overwrote it. My other three books are entirely fictitious. So the story is driven by my own imagination. Whilst Home was much the same, it was also drawn from events in real life, so I knew where things would go. My original intention was to maybe do a story from every decade, right up to the end. But I realized I’d compacted the last twenty years into the final chapter. Life is a lot more settled. So, to answer that particular question, it wasn't such a challenge to write, even though it was longer, because there was a definite thread I could follow.