JOHN SAYLES In Person With Paul

JOHN SAYLES chats to Paul Burke about his historical novel JAMIE MacGILLIVRAY, the dialogue of Peter Cooke & Dudley Moore, British grub, perspectives of history and historical fiction.

JAMIE MacGILLIVRAY: It begins in the highlands of Scotland in 1746, at the Battle of Culloden, the last desperate stand of the Stuart 'pretender' to the throne of the Three Kingdoms, Bonnie Prince Charlie, and his rabidly loyal supporters. Vanquished with his comrades by the forces of the Hanoverian (and Protestant) British crown, the novel's eponymous hero, Jamie MacGillivray, narrowly escapes a roadside execution only to be recaptured by the victors and shipped to Marshalsea Prison (central to Charles Dickens's Hard Times) where he cheats the hangman a second time before being sentenced to transportation and indentured servitude in colonial America 'for the term of his natural life.' His travels are paralleled by those of Jenny Ferguson, a poor, village girl swept up on false charges by the English and also sent in chains to the New World. The novel follows Jamie and Jenny through servitude, revolt, escape, and romantic entanglements pawns in a deadly game. The two continue to cross paths with each other and with some of the leading figures of the era - the devious Lord Lovat, future novelist Henry Fielding, the artist William Hogarth, a young and ambitious George Washington, the doomed General James Wolfe, and the Lenape chief feared throughout the Ohio Valley as Shingas the Terrible.

John Sayles is an American independent film director, screenwriter, actor, and novelist. He has twice been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, for Passion Fish (1992) and Lone Star (1996). He has written seven novels, the most recent being Yellow Earth (2020) and A Moment in the Sun (2011).

Recommendations
José Latour
Martin Limón
John le Carré The Pigeon Tunnel
Walter Mosley
Film: Emily The Criminal
Diana Gabaldon

Mentions:
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee Dee Brown
Howard Zinn
The Lady Vanishes
Zadie Smith
A Moment in the Sun - John Sayles
James Dickie
Bruce Springsteen
Bill Forsyth

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Music courtesy of Southgate and Leigh
Crime Time

Paul Burke writes for Crime Time, Crime Fiction Lover and the European Literature Network. He is also a CWA Historical Dagger Judge 2022 .

 

Produced by Junkyard Dog

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