Where to Start with Nick Hornby: A Reading Guide
Where to start with Nick Hornby — whether to begin with High Fidelity or About a Boy. A complete reading guide to the British comic novelist.
By Aisha Patel
Nick Hornby (born 1957) is the British novelist and screenwriter who — with High Fidelity (1995) and About a Boy (1998) — established himself as the foremost chronicler of a particular kind of late-twentieth-century male emotional incompetence: the enthusiast, the list-maker, the man whose genuine passion for music or football or popular culture provides both authentic connection and a convenient avoidance of anything requiring emotional vulnerability. His fiction is warm, very funny, and more emotionally intelligent than its comic surface initially suggests. Both of his major novels were adapted into successful films.
Where to Start: High Fidelity (1995)
The essential Hornby — and one of the great comic novels of the 1990s. Rob Fleming owns Championship Vinyl in Holloway, North London, is thirty-five years old, and has just been dumped by his girlfriend Laura. He deals with his pain in the only way he knows: by compiling top five lists (top five most memorable break-ups; top five records about heartbreak) and eventually by tracking down his former girlfriends to understand why they all left him.
The genius of the novel is the precision with which Hornby maps the gap between Rob’s self-knowledge and his self-deception. Rob knows exactly what is wrong with him — he articulates it brilliantly — and he is entirely unable to change. The top five lists are both a comic device and a formal argument: Rob’s defensive relationship to his own feelings, his constant translation of emotion into cultural inventory, is precisely the problem the novel is diagnosing. Very funny and genuinely sad.
About a Boy (1998)
Hornby’s most warmly accomplished novel — and the one that demonstrates most clearly that his comedy is genuinely humanistic rather than merely satirical. Will Freeman, 36, has committed himself to a life of complete non-involvement: no relationships, no obligations, no development. He is comfortable, pleasant, and entirely hollow. Through a comic deception involving a fictional son and a single parents’ support group, he meets Marcus, twelve years old, relentlessly uncool, and managing a suicidally depressed mother with alarming competence.
The dual-narrative alternates between Will and Marcus, showing how two people stuck in categories they should not be occupying — an adult who refuses to grow up, a child who has grown up too fast — gradually rescue each other. His most emotionally generous and most formally controlled work.
Reading Nick Hornby
Hornby’s fiction is distinguished by its comedy — very funny, precisely observed, built from genuine affection for its characters — and by its emotional intelligence, which is more considerable than the comic surface initially suggests. His central subject is the specific difficulty men have in translating their genuine enthusiasms (music, sport, popular culture) into emotional honesty with the people they love: the same quality that makes Rob or Will charming is the quality that makes them frustrating to be with. Begin with High Fidelity for the defining statement of this theme; read About a Boy for its warmest and most fully humanised expression.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where should I start with Nick Hornby?
High Fidelity (1995) is the essential starting point — Hornby's debut novel and the defining book about men who use pop culture to avoid growing up. Rob Fleming owns a record shop in North London and has just been dumped. He compiles top five lists compulsively and eventually decides to investigate his past relationships to understand what is wrong with him. One of the great comic novels of the 1990s. About a Boy is the best alternative for readers who want Hornby's most structurally accomplished and most warmly moving novel.
What is High Fidelity about?
High Fidelity (1995) is narrated by Rob Fleming, who owns Championship Vinyl, a North London record shop, and has just been left by his girlfriend Laura. Rob is charming, self-aware, and entirely unable to take emotional responsibility for anything. He deals with his pain by compiling top five lists — top five worst break-ups, top five records for a Monday morning — and eventually decides to track down his previous girlfriends to understand why they all left him. The novel is about the gap between self-knowledge and self-change, and about the specific ways men use pop culture enthusiasm as both a genuine form of love and a form of emotional avoidance.
What is About a Boy about?
About a Boy (1998) follows Will Freeman, 36, independently wealthy from his father's royalties, and committed to a life of complete non-involvement. He invents a fictional son in order to meet single mothers at a support group and through this deception meets Marcus, a twelve-year-old with a depressed mother and a spectacular inability to fit in at school. The novel alternates between Will and Marcus, showing how an adult who has refused to grow up and a child who has been forced to grow up too fast end up saving each other. Hornby's most formally accomplished novel and his most emotionally generous.
Is Nick Hornby's work only for men?
Hornby's fiction is sometimes characterised as 'lad lit' — a male counterpart to chick lit — but this is reductive. High Fidelity is about male emotional avoidance, but it is equally legible as an account of what it is like to be Laura (Rob's girlfriend), who is written with complete sympathy. About a Boy is at least as much about the mother, Fiona, as about Will or Marcus. Hornby's comic intelligence is not gender-specific; his observations about the way people use shared enthusiasms (music, sport, pop culture) to avoid direct emotional expression apply broadly. Readers of all genders report finding both books genuinely moving.
