The Leaper

The Leaper

Seumas Macdonald is an outsider, not only because he lives on an isolated primitive croft, but also because,
being the only child in the school to speak Gaelic
(apart from his disturbed sister), he is the favourite of
MacCallum the headmaster, which leads to the boy being bullied in the playground. MacCallum comes in his boat for ceilidhs with the Macdonald family, to preserve the evocative Gaelic names of birds and flowers, and to teach Seumas to read and write what the headmaster calls 'the language of Eden' which, like the natural world, is under threat. The Leaper chronicles Seumas's late and troubled introduction to sex; revealing how he finds consolation, companionship and hope in the company of a wild creature, in the face of violence and discrimination from the community. The novel is also about the loss of the old oral Gaelic tradition and the emergence of a new form of Gaelic culture, literate, but lacking the continuity of the old spoken tales.

Lorn Macintyre is a poet, novelist, short story writer and television scriptwriter. He spent formative years on the
Isle of Mull.

'I love The Leaper' - Ros Borland, fi lm-maker.