Community Corner
Novelist Alexander McCall Smith Celebrates the Local
Wearing his signature kilt and pausing often to laugh, the novelist talked to a large NJ crowd about his work.
“I hope my novels celebrate the local,” said to a group of some 500 fans who attended the Friends of the Ridgewood Library’s 22nd Annual Author Luncheon.
“And this is an appropriate audience for the local,” added McCall Smith, noting that the library is worthy community focus.
He found only agreement in the audience, many of whom clutched copies of The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party, the latest in the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Novel series, and others of McCall Smith’s more than 60 books. Before the lunch and talk, McCall Smith signed books and posed for numerous photographs with avid fans, including this local Patch editor, who came from all over New Jersey and from Manhattan for the talk.
Find out what's happening in Millburn-Short Hillswith free, real-time updates from Patch.
“I don’t do excitement,” McCall Smith said to laughter. “There is enough happening in the world.”
Instead, he told the group, he writes novels where nothing much happens. In doing so, he follows the model of Jane Austen, whom he described the as “master,” who wrote “upon a tiny square of ivory.”
Find out what's happening in Millburn-Short Hillswith free, real-time updates from Patch.
The small-scale event is significant to McCall Smith and to his characters, he said, because “it’s important to us.” He added, “Local events, small events, are tremendously important and give life its texture.”
Some of his best-known characters include Mma. Ramotswe, the lady detective of the title, and Mma. Makutsi who, said McCall Smith, “stands for people who have had to battle for what they’ve got.”
Another favorite character is Bertie, from the Scotland Street series, who was invented, said McCall Smith, from the novelist’s observation of “pushy mothers.” “We have,” he said confidentially “a pushy mother problem in Edinburgh.” (As an aside, McCall Smith noted that, in Edinburgh, to say something confidential means the listener should repeat it to just one person at a time. If something is strictly confidential, the listener should wait a day.)
McCall Smith has two series in which the main characters, and many members of the supporting cast, are women, and a listener asked how and why that is so. "I do have three sisters," said the author. "And I hope you noticed," he said, stepping from behind the podium to display his signature kilt, "I am wearing a skirt."
The announcement that the author has signed contracts for two more series of the popular HBO movie inspired by the books drew great applause.
Though humorous and focused on the small things in life, McCall Smith noted that his books have literary resonance. He cited favorite novels' beginnings, believing that "first lines of books are very important." His own inspiration comes from Isak Dineson's Out of Africa, a favorite shared with this editor. The book begins, "I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong hills." Likewise, McCall Smith's first book, No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency begins, "Mma Ramotswe had a detective agency at the foot of Kgale Hill."
While first lines are vital, McCall Smith confessed to being a “serial novelist,” one for whom “The End” are difficult words to write.
For the loyal readers who have made his books global best-sellers, that's good news.
McCall Smith was raised in what is now Zimbabwe and now lives in Edinburgh. Quite a few people have asked what he sounds like, and if he has a Scottish accent. To hear his voice, click the video clip.
