By Paul Carrier
With gentle wit and a kindly eye, Alexander McCall Smith, best known for his novels about a female detective in Botswana, unveils a new cast of characters - British, this time around - in Corduroy Mansions. Set in London, the warm, breezy tale explores the ups and downs of a varied lot of generally likable humans characters - and one eminently lovable pooch.
The residents of the Corduroy Mansions apartment building include William French, a widowed, middle-aged wine merchant saddled with a slacker of a son who refuses to move out; four young women, one of whom works for Oedipus Snark, an odious member of Parliament; and reclusive Sri Lankan transplant Basil Wickramsinghe, an accountant.
Into this mix bounds Freddie de la Hay, a Pimlico terrier that French takes in as a parttime boarder, to finally convince his dog-hating son Eddie to get his own place.
Freddie is no ordinary pooch. A vegetarian, he has been trained to wear a seat belt when he’s riding in the car, and gets upset when people fail to buckle him up. He’s almost as intriguing as the human denizens of Corduroy Mansions, albeit less talkative. (We’re privy to his thoughts, but he does not speak.)
McCall Smith’s whimsical sense of humor is on display here. We learn, for example, that Freddie lost his job in airport security because someone filed a gender-bias complaint after discovering that all of the sniffer dogs were male. And we’re reminded that the best way to avoid unwanted small talk at a party is to wear “a discreet lapel badge” that says “please talk to me about salvation” or “no longer infectious.”
While Corduroy Mansions bubbles over with camaraderie and good cheer, that’s not to suggest that the characters are saccharine. Far from it. Snark, as his name implies, is a repulsive creature whose far-from-maternal mother is writing an unflattering biography of him because she can’t stand him.
Although the plot chugs along in a comfortable, mug-of-tea-on-a-rainy-day style, there is action aplenty.
Two characters narrowly escape death. A third suddenly loses her job. Freddie de la Hay disappears. (Don’t worry. It’s only temporary.) A stolen painting is discovered. There’s even a kidnapping. French does battle with his son as fine-art student Caroline tries to convert a friend into a boyfriend and the self-absorbed Snark manipulates everyone who is unfortunate enough to fall within his orbit.
Early on, I was struck by the fact that Corduroy Mansions reads as if it had been written to be serialized. In tone, it strongly resembles Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City novels, several of which were serialized in San Francisco newspapers, before being published in book form.
Only later did I learn that Corduroy Mansions did, in fact, debut in serialized form on the web site of the British newspaper, The Telegraph, in much the same way that Charles Dickens published some of his work sequentially in 19th-century magazines. A sequel, The Dog Who Came in from the Cold, also was serialized at telegraph.co.uk.
And the resemblance to Maupin’s work may not be entirely coincidental. McCall Smith initially serialized another novel, 44 Scotland Street, in The Scotsman newspaper back in 2004, after chatting with Maupin at a party in San Francisco.
