Summary
CORDUROY MANSIONS - Book 1
In the Corduroy Mansions series of novels, set in London's hip Pimlico neighborhood, we meet a cast of charming eccentrics, including perhaps the world's most clever terrier, who make their home in a handsome, though slightly dilapidated, apartment block.nbsp;
Corduroy Mansions is the affectionate nickname given to a genteel, crumbling mansion block in London's vibrant Pimlico neighborhood and the home turf of a captivating collection of quirky and altogether McCall-Smithian characters. There's the middle-aged wine merchant William, who's trying to convince his reluctant twenty-four-year-old son, Eddie, to leave the nest; and Marcia, the boutique caterer who has her sights set on William. There's also the (justifiably) much-loathed Member of Parliament Oedipus Snark; his mother, Berthea, who's writing his biography and hating every minute of it; and his long-suffering girlfriend, Barbara, a literary agent who would like to be his wife (but, then, she'd like to be almost anyone's wife). There's the vitamin evangelist, the psychoanalyst, the art student with a puzzling boyfriend and Freddie de la Hay, the Pimlico terrier who insists on wearing a seat belt and is almost certainly the only avowed vegetarian canine in London.
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Filled with the ins and outs of neighborliness in all its unexpected variations, Corduroy Mansions showcases the life, laughter and humanity that have become the hallmarks of Alexander McCall Smith's work.nbsp;
Author Notes
Alexander McCall Smith was born on August 24, 1948 in Zimbabwe. He was a professor of medical law at the University of Edinburgh, but he left in 2005 to focus on his writing. He has written over 60 books, including specialist academic titles including Forensic Aspects of Sleep and The Criminal Law of Botswana, short story collections including Portuguese Irregular Verbs, and children's books including The Perfect Hamburger. He is best known for the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series. He also writes the Corduroy Mansions, Isabel Dalhousie and 44 Scotland Street series.
He has received numerous awards, including The Crime Writers' Association Dagger in the Library Award and the 2004 United Kingdom's Author of the Year Award. His book, The Full Cupboard of Life, received the Saga Award for Wit in the United Kingdom. In 2007, he received a CBE for his services in literature.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Set in present-day London, Smith's charming first in a new series offers a variation on his 44 Scotland Street books, centering on the eccentric occupants of Corduroy Mansions and their offbeat doings. William French, a wine merchant, hopes to force his son, Eddie, who refuses to take his hints about sharing a flat with other 20-somethings, to leave the nest by getting a dog whose presence in their apartment he expects will drive Eddie out. William's neighbors include Dee, who works at a vitamin shop and believes a coworker needs to purge his system of excess sodium, and her roommate, Jenny, who works for an odious MP, Oedipus Snark, who treats Jenny like dirt. Smith paints with broader strokes than in his subtle and often moving No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, and no one character is especially memorable, but the wry humor he elicits from the collisions of lives and their repercussions will bring smiles to the faces of many readers. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Readers of McCall Smith's 44 Scotland Street novels will savor this new series set among a collection of flats in London's lively Pimlico neighborhood. Residents here run the gamut from the very likable to the much loathed. There's William, a well-meaning, widowed wine merchant determined to oust his lazy twentysomething son from his house. (He's enlisted the assistance of his neighbor, Marcia, who's taken his desire for collusion as a romantic advance.) Then there's the thoroughly despicable Oedipus Snark, a Parliament member devoid of scruples, conscience, and class. Even his own mother despises him; she's writing his biography, with the aim of exposing every one of his faults. Four young women share a flat as well. Among them is Dee, a health-food devotee who can't understand a male coworker's resistance to her offer of a high-colonic, and art history student Caroline, who has designs on a friend unsure whether he wants to date women or men. Also afoot throughout the book is the astonishingly astute Freddie de la Hay, a canine inclined to paws and reflect. Like several of McCall Smith's novels, this droll tale first appeared as a serial (in the online version of the London Telegraph). Wry, witty and wise, it's sure to become another best-selling series in McCall Smith's impressive dossier, which also includes the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency and Isabel Dalhousie mysteries.--Block, Allison Copyright 2010 Booklist
Library Journal Review
No. 1 New York Times best-selling author McCall Smith's (www.mccallsmith.com) new series starter resembles "44 Scotland Street" in that it, too, revolves around eccentric characters (including a vegetarian dog!) sharing a block of flats-here, in London's Pimlico district. However, unlike the earlier series, which makes much of its Edinburgh setting, Corduroy Mansions provides so little sense of place that it might as well be set in Cleveland. The story is full of incidental charm and amusing observations about human nature that will delight devoted -McCall Smith fans, but the thinness of the plot and excessive number of characters provide for a less-than-ideal audio experience, even with Simon Prebble's excellent narration. Recommended with reservations. ["A nice choice if you're looking for a smart beach book or a story to ponder on a rainy afternoon," read the review of the Pantheon hc, LJ Xpress Reviews, 5/14/10.-Ed.]-R. Kent Rasmussen, Thousand Oaks, CA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
1. In the Bathroom Passing off, thought William. Spanish sparkling wine--filthy stuff, he thought, filthy--passed itself off as champagne. Japanese whisky--Glen Yakomoto!--was served as Scotch. Inferior hard cheese--from Mafia-run factories in Catania--was sold to the unsuspecting as Parmesan. Lots of things were passed off in one way or another, and now, as he stood before the bathroom mirror, he wondered if he could be passed off too. He looked at himself, or such part of himself as the small mirror encompassed-just his face, really, and a bit of neck. It was a fifty-one-year-old face chronologically, but would it pass, he wondered, for a forty-something-year-old face? He looked more closely: there were lines around the eyes and at the edge of the mouth but the cheeks were smooth enough. He pulled at the skin around the eyes and the lines disappeared. There were doctors who could do that for you, of course: tighten things up; nip and tuck. But the results, he thought, were usually risible. He had a customer who had gone off to some clinic and come back with a face like a Noh-play mask-all smoothed out and flat. It was sad, really. And as for male wigs, with their stark, obvious hairlines, all one wanted to do was to reach forward and give them a tug. It was quite hard to resist, actually, and once, as a student-and when drunk-he had done just that. He had tugged at the wig of a man in a bar and . . . the man had cried. He still felt ashamed of himself for that. Best not to think about it. No, he was weathering well enough and it was far more dignified to let nature take its course, to weather in a National Trust sort of way. He looked again at his face. Not bad. The sort of face, he thought, that would be hard to describe on the Wanted poster, if he were ever to do anything to merit the attention of the police-which he had not, of course. Apart from the usual sort of thing that made a criminal of everybody: "Wanted for illegal parking," he muttered. "William Edward French (51). Average height, very slightly overweight (if you don't mind our saying so), no distinguishing features. Not dangerous, but approach with caution." He smiled. And if I were to describe myself in one of those lonely hearts ads? Wine dealer, widower, solvent, late forties-ish, GSOH, reasonable shape, interested in music, dining out etc., etc., WLTM presentable, lively woman with view to LTR. That would be about it. Of course one had to be careful about the choice of words in these things; there were codes, and one might not be aware of them. "Solvent" was clear enough: it meant that one had sufficient money to be comfortable, and that was true enough. He would not describe himself as well off, but he was certainly solvent. "Well off," he had read somewhere, now meant disposable assets of over . . . how much? More than he had, he suspected. And "reasonable shape"? Well, if that was not strictly speaking true at present, it would be shortly. William had joined a gym and been allocated a personal trainer. If his shape at present was not ideal, it soon would be, once the personal trainer had worked on him. It would take a month or two, he thought, not much more than that. So perhaps one might say, shortly to be in reasonable shape. Now, what about: would like to meet presentable, lively woman. Well, presentable was a pretty low requirement. Virtually anybody could be presentable if they made at least some effort. Lively was another matter. One would have to be careful about lively because it could possibly be code for insatiable, and that would not do. Who would want to meet an insatiable woman? My son, thought William suddenly. That's exactly the sort of woman Eddie would want to meet. The thought depressed him. William lived with his son. There had been several broad hints dropped that Eddie might care to move out and share with other twenty- somethings, and recently a friend of Eddie's had even asked him if he wanted to move into a shared flat, but these hints had apparently fallen on unreceptive ground. "It's quite an adventure, Eddie," William said. "Everybody at your stage of life shares a flat. Like those girls downstairs. Look at the fun they have. Most people do it." "You didn't." William sighed. "My circumstances, Eddie, were a bit different." "You lived with Grandpa until he snuffed it." "Precisely. But I had to, don't you see? I couldn't leave him to look after himself." "But I could live with you until you snuff it." "That's very kind of you. But I'm not planning to snuff it just yet." Then there had been an offer to help with a mortgage--to pay the deposit on a flat in Kentish Town. William had even gone so far as to contact an agent and find a place that sounded suitable. He had looked at it without telling Eddie, meeting the agent one afternoon and being shown round while a litany of the flat's--and the area's--advantages was recited. William had been puzzled. "But it doesn't appear to have a kitchen," he pointed out. The agent was silent for a moment. "Not as such," he conceded. "No. That's correct. But there's a place for a sink and you can see where the cooker used to be. So that's the kitchen space. Nowadays people think in terms of a kitchen space. The old concept of a separate kitchen is not so important. People see past a kitchen." In spite of the drawbacks, William had suggested that Eddie should look at the place and had then made his proposition. He would give him the deposit and guarantee the mortgage. "Your own place," he said. "It's ideal." Eddie looked doubtful. "But it hasn't got a kitchen, Dad. You said so. No kitchen." William took this in his stride. "It has a kitchen space, Eddie. People see past an actual kitchen these days. Didn't you know that?" But Eddie was not to be moved. "It's kind of you, Dad. I appreciate the offer, but I think it's premature. I'm actually quite comfortable living at home. And it's greener, isn't it? Sharing. It makes our carbon footprint much smaller." And so William found himself living with his twenty-four-year-old son. Wine dealer, he thought, would like his son to meet a lively woman with view to his moving in with her. Permanently. Any area. He turned away from the bathroom mirror and stooped down to run his morning bath. It was a Friday, which meant that he would open the business half an hour late, at ten-thirty rather than ten. This meant that he could have his bath and then his breakfast in a more leisurely way, lingering over his boiled egg and newspaper before setting off; a small treat, but a valued one. There was a knocking on the door, soft at first and then more insistent. "You're taking ages, Dad. What are you doing in there?" He did not reply. "Dad? Would you mind hurrying up? Or do you want me to be late?" William turned and faced the door. He stuck out his tongue. "Don't be so childish," came the voice from the other side of the door. Childish? thought William. Well, you've got a little surprise coming your way, Eddie, my boy. Excerpted from Corduroy Mansions by Alexander McCall Smith All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
