Filmmaker and novelist John Sayles has always been fascinated by history. Several of his works are set in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. But to find the inspiration for his latest novel, he went further back in time.
Due out in February 2023, Jamie MacGillivray (Melville House) is an epic set during the Jacobite rising in mid-18th-century Britain. Sayles didn’t think of the idea for what would become Jamie MacGillivray alone, however.
Speaking over the phone from his home in New York City, Sayles says the idea was suggested to him decades ago by his friend, Scottish actor Robert Carlyle. Together they fleshed out the story: a Scottish Highlands warrior who, following a pivotal defeat in the rebellion, is transported to the New World and enslaved by Native Americans.
“Jamie MacGillivray is based on a screenplay I wrote 20 years ago,” Sayles explains. But after scouting locations, he couldn’t secure financing for the project and shelved it. Then, roughly four years ago, he realized the potential of his project as a novel and decided to adapt it.
The novel’s titular hero starts out fighting in the Battle of Culloden, the final confrontation of the Jacobite rising, before being transported to colonial North America. Sayles says bringing the setting and period to life wasn’t easy. “I knew about what we call the French and Indian War,” he notes, “but I had to research Culloden, and the politics of that time.”
In the novel, as readers follow Jamie on his journey, they are introduced to another protagonist: Jenny Ferguson, who, like Jamie, is sent to America as a prisoner.
“Jenny started out as a minor character,” Sayles explains. “But as I did more research, she grew into a major figure who takes up about a third of the book.” The novel explores the journeys of both Jamie and Jenny as they find themselves trying to survive in new environments.
The fact that Sayles has written an engrossing historical epic won’t come as a surprise to anyone who has followed his career. He was raised in Schenectady, N.Y., then attended Williams College in Massachusetts. After college, he worked for B-movie producer Roger Corman and used the money he made to fund his first feature, 1980’s Return of the Secaucus 7.
Many of Sayles’s films have received critical acclaim; he won a MacArthur fellowship in 1983 and has twice been nominated for an Oscar for best original screenplay. He’s a true auteur—one who throws himself into projects with unbridled passion—and the novel shows an artist firing on all cylinders.
“A lot of the dialogue in Jamie MacGillivray comes right from history,” Sayles says. “The trial in England, for example. That’s all based on trial transcripts. Very grandiloquent. I couldn’t write better stuff.”
One thing Sayles was struck by during his research was the amount of violence that occurred during this period. Yes, the book begins with a battle, but the violence continues pages and pages after that. (Sayles is no stranger to writing violent scenes: his Hollywood writing credits include such horror staples as The Howling, Piranha, and Alligator.) [pullquote align=right]
“The violence really did happen,” Sayles says. “One question I wanted to bring up was, Who are the real savages here? Violence was just the way things got done back then, whether it was in Europe with warlords and the divine right of kings, or in the New World where tribes had long-standing feuds against each other and engaged in violent land grabs. The violence is there because that was what life was like back then.”
The violence in Jamie MacGillivray is in no way gratuitous—it’s vital to the story itself, and true to the period. Sayles focuses on how the characters react to violence, and that drives a lot of the action throughout the book.
“A lot of this story is about survival, and what people will do to survive,” he says. Both Jamie and Jenny are forced to adapt to extreme situations after becoming prisoners in America.
In trying to capture the period authentically, Sayles goes so far as to write in the various languages of the groups represented. In addition to English, Sayles includes Scottish Gaelic, French, and various Native American languages throughout—and sometimes doesn’t offer any translation.
“When you’re writing a book,” Sayles says, “there aren’t going to be any subtitles.” However, he provides enough context that the reader isn’t left totally confused. Adopting new languages is also a crucial way to survive in the novel.
“Jamie is essentially a slave to the Leni Lenape,” he explains. “He realizes, ‘If I’m going to have any status with these people maybe I better pay attention and learn the language.’ ” Jamie starts out as a warrior, but he’s intelligent, too.
“I really didn’t want the Indians to sound like 1950s MGM-style Indians,” Sayles says. “They have this beautiful, metaphoric language. You get metaphors like ‘a tree has fallen on the path between us.’ I realized the Native Americans weren’t struggling to form a language.”
Sayles has had a prolific career marked by a staggering creative intensity, and his love of history shines throughout this novel. “Sometimes you write something and try to justify it in the history,” he says. “But the history is so interesting to me. I prefer to follow the history itself.”
Kevin Hall’s work has appeared in GQ and Video Librarian. He teaches technical writing at the New Jersey Institute of Technology.
