Charlottesville, Va., writer Donovan Webster, author of "Aftermath: The Remnants of War," has known McCaig for years. "Donald has original takes on everything," Webster says.
Born in Butte, Mont., McCaig was lured to Manhattan as a young man. He worked for an advertising firm, including campaigns for Georg Jensen jewelry and After Six formalwear. Eventually, in the mid-1960s, McCaig decided he wanted to be a writer. He and his wife, Anne -- bitten by the back-to-the-land bug -- headed south in a pickup truck camper.
After consulting with poet and agrarian guru Wendell Berry, the McCaigs settled in this majestic, mountainous county in western Virginia, hard against the West Virginia state line. With 2,500 residents, Highland is one of the least-populated counties east of the Mississippi. "There are 150 people in our ZIP code," he says.
In the 40 or so years they have lived here, the McCaigs have put down deep roots. McCaig is an elder at the nearby Williamsville Presbyterian Church, with a congregation of 12.
"Half of them believe in the rapture, and I believe in gay marriage, and everyone agrees to just not talk about those things," he says.
While writing books over the years, he has also become a serious sheep farmer -- the McCaigs have 180 acres on the Cowpasture River -- and a top-notch dog trainer.
These days, the herd is small. A trio of collies -- June, Luke and Peg -- do the herding. "Peg," he says, "is a dope." A couple of guard dogs sleep with the sheep.
Throughout the year, McCaig enters his collies in field trials, competitions in which dogs herd sheep in various farm-like tasks. June, he says, was a semifinalist in a national contest in Gettysburg, Pa. He is hoping to take her to the world championships in Wales next year. But for now, he is on the road.
Early reviews of the new novel are mixed. Entertainment Weekly gave "Rhett Butler's People" a C-plus. Stephen Carter, writing in the New York Times, called it a fine novel.
When McCaig received the offer, he was running his dogs in a trial on the banks of the St. Lawrence River. "That's when I read 'Gone With the Wind' for the first time," he says. "I decided I wasn't interested in a conventional sequel."
But there was something odd about Mitchell's 1,000-page work: "Rhett Butler was constantly disappearing and reappearing, off doing work for somebody, making money somehow," McCaig says. "I found a lot of holes in the story."
