About a Boy - Softcover

Hornby, Nick

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1573229571 ISBN 13: 9781573229579

Publisher: Riverhead Books, 2002

Synopsis

A wise, hilarious novel from the beloved, award-winning author of Funny Girl, High Fidelityand A Long Way Down.

Will Freeman may have discovered the key to dating success: If the simple fact that they were single mothers meant that gorgeous women - women who would not ordinarily look twice a Will - might not only be willing, but enthusiastic about dating him, then he was really onto something. Single mothers - bright, attractive, available women - thousands of them, were all over London. He just had to find them.

SPAT: Single Parents - Alone Together. It was a brilliant plan. And Will wasn't going to let the fact that he didn't have a child himself hold him back. A fictional two-year-old named Ned wouldn't be the first thing he'd invented. And it seems to go quite well at first, until he meets an actual twelve-year-old named Marcus, who is more than Will bargained for...

About this title

Review

Will Lightman is a Peter Pan for the 1990s. At 36, the terminally hip North Londoner is unmarried, hyper-concerned with his coolness quotient and blithely living off his father's novelty song royalties. Will sees himself as entirely lacking in hidden depths--and he's proud of it! The only trouble is, his friends are succumbing to responsibilities and children and he's increasingly left out in the cold. How can someone brilliantly equipped for meaningless relationships ensure that he'll continue to meet beautiful Julie Christie-like women and ensure that they'll throw him over before things get too profound? A brief encounter with a single mother sets Will off on his new career, that of "serial nice guy." As far as he's concerned--and remember, concern isn't his strong suit--he's the perfect catch for the young mother on the go. After an interlude of sexual bliss, she'll realise that her child isn't ready for a man in their life and Will can ride off into the Highgate sunset, where more damsels apparently await. The only catch is that the best way to meet these women is at single-parent get-togethers. In one of Nick Hornby's many hilarious (and embarrassing) scenes, Will falls into some serious misrepresentation at SPAT ("Single Parents-- Alone Together"), passing himself off as a bereft single dad: "There was, he thought, an emotional truth here somewhere, and he could see now that his role-playing had a previously unsuspected artistic element to it. He was acting, yes, but in the noblest, most profound sense of the word."

What interferes with Will's career arc, of course, is reality--in the shape of a 12-year-old boy who is in many ways his polar opposite. For Marcus, cool isn't even a possibility, let alone an issue. For starters, he's a victim at his new school. Things at home are pretty awful, too, since his musical-therapist mother seems increasingly in need of therapy herself. All Marcus can do is cobble together information with a mixture of incomprehension, innocence, self-blame and unfettered clear sight. As fans of Fever Pitch and High Fidelity already know, Hornby's insight into laddishness magically combines the serious and the hilarious. About a Boy continues his singular examination of masculine wish-fulfilment and fear. This time, though, the author lets women and children onto the playing field, forcing his feckless hero to leap over an entirely new--and entirely welcome--set of emotional hurdles.

Review

"A follow up to High Fidelity...About a Boy is an acerbic, emotionally richer yet no less funny tale...shrewdly hilarious."--Entertainment Weekly

"Hornby is a writer who dares to be witty, intelligent and emotionally generous all at once. He combines a skilled, intuitive appreciation for the rigors of comic structure with highly original insights about the way the enchantments of popular culture insinuate themselves into middle-class notions of romance."--The New York Times Book Review

"The conversations between Will and Marcus are hilariously loopy."--The Boston Globe

"An amusing male-bonding theme...stylish, well-observed"--People

"Writing with real 'soul.'"--Harper's Bazaar

"An utterly charming, picaresque tale of an older guy, a young kid, and the funky, dysfunctional real-life ties that bind--and unbind."--Vogue

About this edition

• Publisher: Riverhead Books
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 1573229571
• ISBN 13: 9781573229579
• Binding: Paperback