This is a heart-warming tale of a quiet Scottish law professor and bassoonist who saw a chicken being killed in a far-off African state and was inspired to write a detective story that has become a surprise bestseller.
I have interviewed Alexander (Sandy to all) McCall Smith a number of times. Sometimes I’ve asked him about genetics, because he’s the vice-chairperson of Britain’s Human Genetics Commission. On other occasions I’ve discussed with him a range of medical ethical issues, because he is professor of medical law at Edinburgh University. I’ve read a few of his legal articles, too, clear and well written I thought, though I admit I haven’t tried his many longer tomes, like his seminal book on the forensic aspects of sleep.
And all this time I remained totally unaware that I was talking to a future Publishing Phenomenon, which is what McCall Smith has become. Not, though, in the legal fields in which he has acquired his eminence.
McCall Smith has achieved sudden, unexpected fame as the author of a series of charming novels about —think of something that’s the opposite of medicine, law and Scotland — a woman detective in Botswana.
He has made it on to all sorts of bestseller lists and attracted the kind of reviews that can only be dreamed of. The series now runs to four novels, starting with The No 1 Ladies Detective Agency (published in South Africa by David Philip) and with the latest in the series, Tears of the Giraffe, in Abacus paperback (and featuring on the Exclusive Books Publishers’ Choice list this festive season). A TV series is on the cards, produced by Sydney Pollack and Anthony Minghella’s company Mirage.
But why, of all places, Botswana? Because McCall Smith knows and loves the country. He spent his youth in Zimbabwe, went to Scotland to study law, then returned to Southern Africa and became involved with the University of Botswana. He set up its law faculty and wrote what is still the only comprehensive work on Botswana’s criminal law.
He got the idea for the books while visiting friends there. ”We were going to have chicken for lunch, and there was this woman in a red dress who chased and chased the chicken and eventually caught it, and wrung its neck. I thought to myself: I would like to write about an enterprising woman like that.”
His heroine, Precious Ramotswe, a woman politely described as ”traditionally built”, uses the proceeds of the 180 cattle left to her by her father to become the country’s first woman private eye.
As founder and sole proprietor of The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, Mma Ramotswe (the respectful way to address her) solves her clients’ problems with a delightful mixture of common sense, quiet observation and womanly insight and instinct.
Many reviewers, stumped as to how to describe her, went for a comparison with Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple. But there are no murders in McCall Smith’s books, even cosy ones. ”We are not here to solve crimes,” Mma Ramotswe tells a potential client indignantly. ”We help people with the problems in their lives.”
The problems include missing children, jealous spouses, petty crookery, ostrich rustling and beauty-contest corruption. A man who disappears in the river while being baptised is traced by Mma Ramotswe to the stomach of a crocodile; she personally has to kill the suspect beast to make sure.
Her investigations are accompanied by down-to-earth but never sentimental philosophy. Mma Ramotswe has barely travelled outside her country, yet is immensely sophisticated; she is steeped in local custom, but thoroughly modern; a funny, tough cookie possessed of great wisdom.
Perhaps it is misleading to categorise the books as crime fiction — they’re more about Africa than about detection.
”These books are very non-aggressive, very gentle,” says McCall Smith. ”They’re quiet books, there’s a lot of drinking of tea. They’re about good people leading good lives. I think the Americans who read them are fed up with in-your-face social realism — here’s something that is much more gentle, somewhat old-fashioned. They’ve been going through a terrible time domestically, and my books are an antidote.”
So Americans are reading them in droves. How about Botswanans? ”I think people in Botswana are pleased that my books paint a positive picture of their lives and portray the country as being very special. They’ve made a great success of their country, and the people are fed up with the constant reporting of only the problems and poverty of the continent. They welcome something which puts the positive side.”
The Precious Ramotswe series was not the only secret that McCall Smith had been keeping from me. He has also, for instance, had 30 children’s books published; and he is a member of one of Scotland’s best-known, if not necessarily most respected orchestras, regular and popular performers at the Edinburgh fringe festival with healthy CD sales.
The Really Terrible Orchestra consists of adequate musicians who don’t quite make a beautiful sound together. McCall Smith (”I’m the worst bassoonist in Scotland”) plays snatches of their CD to me and cackles with laughter: ”Just listen to how flat we are.”
He’s not a workaholic, he insists, and his wife, an Edinburgh doctor, and two teenage daughters are not complaining. It helps that he can write at an impressive 1 000 words an hour ”when I’m at full tilt”.
I ask him a few serious questions about the dangers of the misuse of genetic information; he switches without any hesitation from light-hearted chat about Botswanan detection and bad bassoonists to discussing deep ethical issues.
His life has changed, however, since he became a bestseller in the United States. Trips to New York are becoming increasingly frequent as publishers vie to court him and feed him at expensive restaurants.
”I can’t deny that my life has been turned upside down. It’s been overwhelming — exciting, but very demanding. But I hope that, when it dies down, I’ll be able to resume normal life.” Not much chance of that, I suspect. — Â