Ticket 2 Ride

Every new book by Alexander McCall Smith is an “ah ha” moment for me. About twice a years he delights us with a new book. The Private Side of Friendship (2026) is a standalone novel, meaning it belongs to no series. I haven’t a clue if this will story will be continued across more books.

The Private Side of Friendship is set in McCall Smith’s favorite city of Edinburgh, which is base for several of his other, successful book series. A young college student, Julie, answers an ad for a flat for rent, a dwelling large enough for a total of six roommates. She decides to sign the lease and round up five others to share this large flat.

What struck her was the fact that she had brought a series of parallel lives to a confluence, and this could have a profound effect on some, or even all of them. Now that they were all under the same roof, nothing, for each of them, would ever be the same.

What we are privy to is the roommate selection, and the first months of this living arrangement. Soon after all six are onboard, one of them decides to let their new partner move in, but secretly, so none of the roommates are consulted, but one of them catches on.

The story is about those six roommates and how their lives connect. None of them knew each other, they come together in a mutual habitat. The book jumps to a reunion four years later, so it’s difficult to gauge their amount of time interacting, or in various combinations of roommates.

She nodded. “Sharing can be a bit odd sometimes, I think. We all have our separate lives, but we also have”
“A common life?” he interjected.
“Yes, you could call it that.” She paused.
“It’s a rather special time in one’s life, isn’t it? For most people, student years are the only time one will live in a community like this. You find yourself sharing with people you haven’t met before and you….well, you become a member of something. And then, before you know it, it’s over.”
He nodded. “You’re right,” he said. “It’s a short time of happiness.”

Remember the Big Chill, college students reunite at a funeral and struggle with who these people are now. Grosse Pointe Blank? Ten year high school reunion. “You can never go home again. But you can shop there.” Then the bomb destroys the convenience store. Diner. Friends regroup for an upcoming wedding. Growing up is done at different speeds and success rates. Stand By Me was not a reunion film, thought its focus was on looking back on four boys at the zenith of their friendship, before their bonds began to dissolve.

Bittersweet. Poignant. Incomplete.

After several years apart, the six have different experiences to draw upon. A couple of years is barely time to process life as an adult, especially as several are really yet to travel very far outside the college bubble, though some have already had a taste of unrewarding jobs and need to reboot.

Relationship stories frequently follow the cliche of how friends grow apart over time or someone realizes how little they knew either other then. Our younger years, high school or college, are generally great times, set inside very insular situations, reflecting a colorful and not real world storyline.

She looked at him. She had rarely, if ever, had a conversation with another person that was quite as intimate as this. She wondered what it cost him to speak so frankly; it could not have been easy. You bared your soul and you gave away something of yourself: some small piece of the armour, in which we wrap ourselves. And then you were naked, with all the vulnerability of those who have no clothing to protect them from the gaze of others.

This bit of dialogue could have been lifted from the ending of Stand By Me:

“It’s just that somehow the friends you have at that stage of life are unlike those you make later on. You are at the start line. You’re never in that particular place again.”
He asked her about them, and she replied, “I find it hard to describe them. We were very different from each other, but it seemed to work. I suppose you might say that we loved one another.”

I’m not sure that I can recommend this book. It’s not badly, I’m afraid it’s just one of his weaker books. McCall Smith is a wonderful writer, and his drama is more the thoughtful, interpersonal variety that leads to conflicts and misunderstandings. I kept waiting for the story to deepen and cause me to care about the characters. I can’t say that I learned much about any of them. The story was not very original or insightful. A swing and a miss for me.