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Summary
Summary
The rocking motion of the train as it speeds along, the sound of its wheels on the rails . . . There's something special about this form of travel that makes for easy conversation, which is just what happens to the four strangers who meet in Trains and Lovers .
As they journey by rail from Edinburgh to London, the four travelers pass the time by sharing tales of trains that have changed their lives. A young, keen-eyed Scotsman recounts how he turned a friendship with a female coworker into a romance by spotting an anachronistic train in an eighteenth-century painting. An Australian woman shares how her parents fell in love and spent their life together running a railroad siding in the remote Australian Outback. A middle-aged American patron of the arts sees two young men saying goodbye in a train station and recalls his own youthful crush on another man. And a young Englishman describes how exiting his train at the wrong station allowed him to meet an intriguing woman whom he impulsively invited to dinner--and into his life.
Here is Alexander McCall Smith at his most enchanting, exploring the nature of love--and trains--in a collection of romantic, intertwined stories.
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)
Reviews (3)
Kirkus Review
Four strangers sharing a railway carriage from Edinburgh to London recall their very different experiences of love in this stand-alone from McCall Smith (Unusual Uses for Olive Oil, 2012, etc.). Andrew, a Scot en route to a new job, begins by telling of his love for Hermione, who served with him as an intern at an auction house, and its principal obstacle: her wealthy, imperious father, an alpha male who brooks no opposition. In response, Andrew's fellow passenger David, an American academic, recalls a story too intimate for him to share aloud: his unconsummated love many years ago for Bruce, a Princeton math professor's son whom he saw only during his annual vacations. Kay, an Australian who lives in Perth, recounts the romance between her parents, a Scot who settled in the Outback to manage the remote railroad station of Hope Springs and the pen pal whom he persuaded during a brief trip to Sydney to follow him back to a posting far from anything she'd ever known. Trains also play a pivotal role in the story of Hugh, who absent-mindedly disembarks at the wrong station in Gloucestershire and ends up in a relationship with Jenny. All goes well until a former boyfriend warns Hugh that Jenny is not what she seems to be--a possibility Hugh struggles to deal with. The interplay among the four stories is mostly limited to aphorisms like "[l]oving others...is the good thing we do in our lives" and "[e]verything is possible in love." A warmhearted, understated serving of comfort food.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
The latest from McCall Smith, Scotland's contemporary answer to Anthony Trollope, is a stand-alone novel, set on the train from Edinburgh to London. Unfortunately, the novel is a rare misfire for McCall Smith, the architect of the everyone brings problems to one place frame used to such wonderful effect in the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series and in the elegantly interlocking stories in the 44 Scotland Street and Corduroy Mansions series. The frame here has four people in one train compartment: three men (from Scotland, the U.S., and England) and one woman (from Western Australia) settle in to tell each other tales of their past loves. It would take a derrick to suspend this I beam of disbelief, beginning with the startling fact that these twenty-first-century travelers occupy the entire journey by taking turns talking there's not an iPad in sight. Those who expect the sort of assignations promised by the cover art will be disappointed; there's not even any flirting. Still, if readers can ignore the screeching narrative wheels, there are the usual rewards to reading McCall Smith, including his deft descriptions of landscape and the physical characteristics of his characters and, of course, his wise and witty reflections on love and luck.--Fletcher, Connie Copyright 2010 Booklist
Library Journal Review
The human yearning for love-"to give it and to receive it in that familiar battle that all of us fight with loneliness"-is at the heart of McCall Smith's wistful stand-alone novel, as four strangers on an Edinburgh-to-London rail journey share stories of romance both thwarted and fulfilled. Art history student Andrew tells how he fell for the daughter of a disapproving business magnate. Hugh thinks his schoolteacher girlfriend might have an assumed identity. David recalls his unrequited affection for another man during summers spent in rural Maine. And in the book's most affecting tale, Kay recounts her Scottish father's emigration to the desolate Australian outback and pen pal courtship of her mother. VERDICT Subtle wit, leisurely pacing, copious references to W.H. Auden-the hallmarks of McCall Smith's storytelling are in full force here, as is his penchant for quiet vignettes. That's too bad, because the other story lines are less compelling than the evocative Australian scenes, which merit a full book of their own. Nonetheless, these interludes will provide the author's fans with another soothing literary sojourn. [See Prepub Alert, 11/30/12.]-Annabel Mortensen, Skokie P.L., IL (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.