Introduction

Nick Hornby

‘Hornby believes that beautiful songs, beautiful books and yes, the beautiful game, are the great forces. He loves good stuff so much that one might call him the European Ambassador of Goodness’ (Zadie Smith, Time magazine)

Nick Hornby (born 17 April 1957) is a British novelist, essayist and screenwriter. He is best known for his sharply comedic, pop-culture-drenched depictions of dissatisfied adulthood, as well as his music and literary criticism.

Hornby’s parents divorced when he was young, after which he lived with his mother and sister. He received a degree in English literature from the University of Cambridge in 1979 and began his studies at a teachers’ training school the following year. While working as a teacher in Cambridge and then London, Hornby began a freelance journalism career, writing for publications including GQ, Time Out, and Esquire and serving as pop music critic for The New Yorker. He published a collection of literary essays in 1992, the same year that saw the release of Fever Pitch, an autobiographical account of his life as an obsessive supporter of the English football (soccer) club Arsenal. The hugely popular book won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award and was adapted as both a play and a film in 1997 and again in 2005.

When he turned to fiction, he continued to explore male obsessions, crises and weaknesses. His first work of fiction, High Fidelity, released in 1995, follows the romantic collisions and reluctant maturation of 30-something Rob Fleming, owner of a London record store – another obsessive fan. High Fidelity garnered critical acclaim and became a best seller in England. High Fidelity was adapted to film (2000) and for the Broadway stage (2006).

Hornby’s other novels include About a Boy (1998), How to Be Good (2001) and Juliet, Naked (2009). The latter revisits extreme fandom in the Internet age, centring on an insular online community of music fans and the reclusive rock musician that they idolize.

Among Hornby’s nonfiction works are 31 Songs (2003), an exploration through autobiographical essay of his favourite music, and The Complete Polysyllabic Spree (2004), which collects the pop-culture columns he wrote for the literary magazine The Believer. Housekeeping vs. the Dirt (2006) was a second volume of his Believer columns. Hornby wrote the screenplay for the 2009 film An Education, based on a Granta magazine essay by British journalist Lynn Barber, for which Hornby received an Oscar nomination [10].

Hornby’s style is praised both by readers and critics. This is what the author says about the way his writing style was shaped ‘… everything changed for me when I read Anne Tyler, Raymond Carver, Richard Ford, and Lorrie Moore, all in about '86-'87 … voice, tone, simplicity, humour, soul ... all of these things seemed to be missing from the contemporary English fiction I'd looked at, and I knew then what I wanted to do’ [11].

Hornby’s novelistic tone combines the reflexive irony and self-deprecation of his often-floundering protagonists with a buoyant belief in the redemptive power of art (especially music) and of human contact.

About a Boy (1998)

About a Boy concerns an awkward yet endearing adolescent from a single-parent family, and the free-floating, mid-30s Will Freeman, a superficial fellow who hasn't had to work a day in his life, thanks to royalties garnered from a popular Christmas song his father wrote. He's perfectly happy living alone in his fashionable flat, with its expensive stereo equipment, hardwood floors, and a cream-colored rug. But Will's life takes an unexpected turn when, in a pathetic attempt to expand his potential dating pool into the realm of single mothers, he poses as a single dad. Which is how Will meets Marcus, the oldest 12-year-old on the planet. Marcus is a bit strange: he listens to Joni Mitchell and Mozart, looks after his mum and has never owned a pair of trainers. But Marcus latches on to Will – and won’t let go. Can Will teach Marcus how to grow up cool? And can Marcus help Will just to grow up?

The language of About a Boy records the everyday colloquial speech of Londoners and people from southern England typical in the 1990s. It is casual and low-key, Hornby resorts to the use of clichés and standard phrases and makes them an instrument of comedy.

The major themes of the novel concern the decline of the nuclear family and what might take its place; the learning to interact with other people, which makes life more dynamic and provides greater possibilities for both joy and grief. About a Boy can also be seen as a commentary on modern masculinity – in the sense that both Marcus and Will have to grow up, change, and gain a sense of responsibility for and involvement with others [7].

About a Boy is a hilarious, fast-paced, and compulsively readable and heartwarming story about the modern man. It was made into a movie in 2002.