Alexander mccall smith interview: The story behind his new book

Best-selling author Alexander McCall Smith tells us about his new Edinburgh-based series, and why he thinks Scotland’s romance and intimacy appeals to readers from all over the world

Words by Henrietta Easton

An interview with Alexander McCall Smith

My new novel is called The Perfect Passion Company, and it is the first in a series accounting life in an old fashioned marriage bureau in Edinburgh. The story is based on a woman who has been working in London and who comes back to Edinburgh to take over her father’s cousin’s business.

These old fashioned bureaus do still exist, and I think they give people a more personal, or bespoke form of introduction than meeting someone online. The book provides a setting for a number of, what I might describe as, love stories, or of encounters between people who are looking for people to love.

Edinburgh lends itself to all sorts of settings, particularly romantic ones. It is one of the most romantic looking cities in Western Europe.

Even after having spent most of my life here, sometimes walking down the street you think you’re on an opera set. This series, like my other series 44 Scotland Street, is set in Edinburgh’s Georgian New Town – a beautiful and interesting area of the city.

People walk along and admire the marvellous Georgian terraces and yet they don’t really get an idea of the complexity of the lives behind those front doors. You get these lovely Palladian avenues stretching as far as the eye can see, and this architectural uniformity is a central part of the city’s beauty, but it means people don’t know about the different lives being led there. In both The Perfect Passion Company and 44 Scotland Street I look at how all these totally separate lives are brought together by just living on the same street, or the same housing block or neighbourhood.

When I write about Edinburgh I write about people who I’ve met or who I’ve seen here, and all of my characters are representative of a familiarity with the city and its people. As a novelist you choose interesting lives, or maybe lives in which unusual things have happened, but your characters have to be credible and believable. After years and years of living in a place, feeling the place and seeing it in all its modes and how time changes it, you acquire an unrivalled sense of it and the people who inhabit it.

Scotland is a country of romance and excitement for people all over the world, thanks to Walter Scott’s image of it. When I wrote my 44 Scotland Street books I initially thought they would appeal primarily to readership in Scotland, and possibly just in Edinburgh where they are set.

But actually they became very popular all over the world, and I realised this was because Scotland represents a small, intimate country and it is this friendliness that people are drawn to.

The world can be a vast, threatening place, with people often unconcerned with each other. But Scotland is the antithesis of that. It’s a country where people know one another, and where people, by and large, treat each other with good humour and courtesy. It really is amazing that people in the most unlikely places read these books and they want to be a part of something small, intimate and friendly.

The Perfect Passion Company and 44 Scotland Street are a distillation of the intimacy of Edinburgh and Scotland. People go and look for number 44 on Scotland Street and they feel they personally know the people who live there.

Ultimately, people want love, friendship and community. These are key ideas in a vast, impersonal world, and this is what I try to bring them in my books.

The Perfect Passion Company is available to buy from Polygon, an imprint of Birlinn Books (£18.99), birlinn.co.uk

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