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Ivonne Rovira's Reviews > 44 Scotland Street
44 Scotland Street (44 Scotland Street, #1)
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Alexander McCall Smith had already created two incredibly diverse series — one with Mma Precious Ramotswe, the intuitive and clever Botswanan detective who debuted in the novel The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, and philosopher Isabel Dalhousie of The Sunday Philosophy Club series — when a chance meeting with Armistead Maupin gave us 44 Scotland Street. Speaking with Maupin, the author of Tales of the City, gave Smith the idea of borrowing the idea of the apartment house in San Francisco and transplanting it to Edinburgh’s trendy New Town neighborhood. This being Smith, the result isn’t the least derivative.
As Maupin’s tale begins with Mary Ann Singleton moving into an apartment at 28 Barbary Lane, 44 Scotland Street begins when Pat MacGregor, a girl on her second gap year, decides to share a flat in the eponymous building. As the chapters of Tales of the City were serialized in The San Francisco Chronicle in 1976, the 110 chapters of 44 Scotland Street were serialized in The Scotsman in 2004. But there, the similarities end. While Maupin wrote mostly about young people adjusting to hip San Francisco, the flats at 44 Scotland Street contain residents of the breadth of society: uncertain Pat; her flatmate, narcissistic, smug, and unscrupulous Bruce Anderson; the sophisticated semi-retired anthropologist Domenica MacDonald and her custard-colored Mercedes-Benz 560 SEC; and beleaguered Bertie Pollack, his milquetoast father Stuart, and his extremely pushy, snobbish mother, Irene, an aficionado of ultra-modern child psychology theories who’s intent on turning her son into a saxophone-playing, Italian-speaking prodigy. The novel also delves into the inhabitants’ friends, family, and employers. While the chapters are short, Smith, as always , manages to maintain the perfect balancing act in which he tackles Big Ideas and philosophical questions — the “conversations about things worth talking about,” as one character calls it — while remaining amusing and often laugh-out-loud funny.
Be sure to have the next book in the series in hand before you finish 44 Scotland Street: You’ll be eager to tackle Espresso Tales right away to discover what further adventures befall the 44 Scotland Street denizens.
As Maupin’s tale begins with Mary Ann Singleton moving into an apartment at 28 Barbary Lane, 44 Scotland Street begins when Pat MacGregor, a girl on her second gap year, decides to share a flat in the eponymous building. As the chapters of Tales of the City were serialized in The San Francisco Chronicle in 1976, the 110 chapters of 44 Scotland Street were serialized in The Scotsman in 2004. But there, the similarities end. While Maupin wrote mostly about young people adjusting to hip San Francisco, the flats at 44 Scotland Street contain residents of the breadth of society: uncertain Pat; her flatmate, narcissistic, smug, and unscrupulous Bruce Anderson; the sophisticated semi-retired anthropologist Domenica MacDonald and her custard-colored Mercedes-Benz 560 SEC; and beleaguered Bertie Pollack, his milquetoast father Stuart, and his extremely pushy, snobbish mother, Irene, an aficionado of ultra-modern child psychology theories who’s intent on turning her son into a saxophone-playing, Italian-speaking prodigy. The novel also delves into the inhabitants’ friends, family, and employers. While the chapters are short, Smith, as always , manages to maintain the perfect balancing act in which he tackles Big Ideas and philosophical questions — the “conversations about things worth talking about,” as one character calls it — while remaining amusing and often laugh-out-loud funny.
Be sure to have the next book in the series in hand before you finish 44 Scotland Street: You’ll be eager to tackle Espresso Tales right away to discover what further adventures befall the 44 Scotland Street denizens.
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