How to describe Nick Hornby? He's the British author of such popular novels as About a Boy and High Fidelity (if you haven't read the books, you may have seen the movies). He's known, primarily, as an author who takes a closer look at the lives and lifestyles of aimless single guys -- but it's something of an unfair pigeon-holing. Nick Hornby knows how to write about everyone.
His books are noteworthy precisely because they seem like they shouldn't be -- being stories about average people who find themselves in situations that, while not average, become totally relatable. His plots are so uniquely quirky (obsessive fans, spiritual conversions, and temporary time travel, to name but a few), that it's only because of Hornby's incredible way with words that you can still relate to the characters. He has a knack at describing our everyday thoughts, feelings, and impulses in simplistic language -- but it's a language that shows off his uncanny ability to reveal what it truly means to be human.
And, if it's true that I don't always agree with those conclusions, I always enjoy coming along with Hornby to see what his characters discover. Here, then, is a look at my three personal Hornby favorites:
-- About a Boy
"This thing about looking for someone less different... It only really worked, he realized, if you were convinced that being you wasn't so bad in the first place."
Thirtysomething Will Freeman lives a life of somewhat boring leisure, whiling away his time watching reality TV and listening to music albums. He doesn't have to work (and so he doesn't work), thanks to the royalties rolling in to him from his father's one-hit-wonder music career. (His dad wrote a smash-hit Christmas jingle.) Will's life has been lacking in any particular challenges, until he hatches a unique scheme to meet women: he joins a support group for single parents. He's not a single father, himself, but he solves that problem neatly enough by inventing an imaginary two-year-old son named Ned to tell the ladies about.
Then there's Marcus -- a slightly awkward, slightly nerdy twelve-year-old who is having a rough time of it. He and his mum have just moved to London, and adjusting to his new school proves impossible. Nobody likes him -- not even the teachers -- and he can't figure out why. (He'd go to his mum, but she has problems of her own.)
When Will and Marcus's paths intersect, Will finds that he can't just brush Marcus out of his life. Marcus needs an adult in his life, after all -- and even if, on the surface, Will doesn't seem like the best guy for the task, it quickly turns out that he's the only one up for the job.
(The 2002 film adaptation stars Hugh Grant -- and the book is also the basis for a single-camera sit-com due out this fall, courtesy of NBC.)
"The plain state of being human is dramatic enough for anyone; you don't need to be a heroin addict or a performance poet to experience extremity. You just have to love someone."
I picked this book up on a whim at a bookshop. I wanted something different from what I normally read, and this quirky, darkly hilarious, quietly heart-rending book definitely fit the bill.
Katie Carr is a family practitioner whose marriage is on the rocks. She's married to a man known in his own newspaper column as "The Angriest Man in Holloway" -- which might explain why they can't stop fighting. Divorce seems inevitable -- that is, until David undergoes a most unusual spiritual conversation and decides to change his life.
Determined not only to treat Katie (and their two kids) much better than before, David's plans for turning over his new leaf go much further than that. Donating their most valuable belongings to shelters. Giving away their holiday dinner to the poor. Organizing a neighborhood-wide project to bring in homeless teens and offering them places to stay in everyone's homes. On paper, it sounds magical -- but it takes a toll in ways Katie couldn't have imagined.
Darkly funny, sharply observant, and devastatingly real, Hornby uses this book to answer one of the most stark but complicated questions of the human condition: why can't we come together and make it all right?
-- Slam
"There are many differences between a baby and an iPod. And one of the biggest is, no one's going to mug you for your baby."
There's lots of books about teen pregnancy. This nominally-YA novel takes a different approach from the norm and tells the story from the guy's point of view.
Fifteen-year-old Sam is, himself, the son of a teen mum. He certainly knows all about how much a small mistake can change your life -- but he never anticipated becoming a teen dad.
He explains all this to Tony Hawk, his skateboarding hero. Sam's got a poster of TH in his bedroom, and he's taken to explaining all of his problems to his imaginary mentor when he can't quite figure out what to do next. He isn't going to leave Alicia to handle things on her own -- but what does this mean for her? For them? For Sam himself? And how can he find his way through it?
As if that's not bad enough, something ... weird is going on. Sam goes to bed and wakes up a few years in his own future. (It's how he knows he's going to be a dad even before Alicia gets the pregnancy test results.) After a day, he's back in time where he started -- with no idea how he went there, how he got back, or even what it all means. But it must mean something, because Sam is pretty sure that Tony Hawk's behind it ...
As funny and insightful as his other books, Hornby's Slam stands out to me. It's a sci-fi book without the science fiction, a teen book perfect for adults. In the end, the story's sporadic windows into the future are there to show Sam -- and us -- that our present might not be so bad after all.
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