About a Boy

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.

Marcus is precocious and an outsider in his class. He wears the wrong sneakers, he listens to the wrong music (Joni Mitchell) and he has the wrong haircut. His classmates bully him because of that and his depressive mother also tries to top herself. He even thinks that Kurt Cobain plays for Manchester United. Will Freeman is a thirty-six-year-old bloke, but he behaves like a teenager. He is cool, wears trendy shirts and sneakers and also listens to Snoop Doggy Dog and Nirvana. He has no attachments, no plans for the future and no problems. Will has never worked, because of his songwriter father, who wrote the No. 1 hit "Santa's Super Sleigh" years ago. Now he lives from the royalties he gets. He is independent and his days consist of TV, music, shopping and the short-term relationships to sexy and good-looking women. Furthermore there are Fiona, Suzie (the best friend of Fiona) and Clive (Marcus' father who split up with Fiona). Fiona is Marcus' mother and as weird as her son. She's nerdy, well intentioned and has her own way of life. All in all: She doesn't make life easier for Marcus. After an affair with Angie, a single mother, Will decides to make a career with single mothers. It should be so easy for him. "Single mothers - bright, attractive, available women, thousands of them, all over London - were the best invention Will had ever heard of." He invents a new identity and finally he has a two-year-old boy called Ned. Now Will Freeman is a single father what allows him to join the SPAT (Single Parents - Alone Together). At one of the SPAT meetings he meets Marcus. And when Marcus discovers Will's little secret he blackmails Will into helping him. That's the beginning of an exceptional relationship. Marcus realizes that Will knows "things". Will is that kind of guy that Marcus needs, someone who tells him things about Kurt Cobain, who buys him the right sneakers and shows him how to act his age. But Will also profits from the relationship to Marcus, who helps him to grow up or to become acquainted with women, for example.

I think some of the characters in the novel aren't explored well enough to understand all their thinking and doing. We know Marcus' mother Fiona is depressed but we don't really know why (just because she's split up with Clive?). We also don't really know why Ellie, Marcus' best and only friend in school, takes an interest in Marcus and why she is always so angry with everyone else. The reason why Hornby called his book "About A Boy" isn't obvious at last. Perhaps it is a play on the song "About A Girl" by Nirvana, which is on their famous CD "Unplugged in New York".

I think "About A Boy" is good - nothing more, nothing less. The story sometimes seems to be constructed. Hornby even has Will meet a date in the imaginary record store from "High Fidelity", Championship Vinyl. I think the novel is written too commercial. The book has all the ingredients that are needed for market success: sex, hate, friendship and even an attempted suicide.

Finally I think the novel isn't as good as "High Fidelity"; all the same it is a good and entertaining vacation reading and I would recommend it to all who want a short and amusing read.


A funny, satisfying page-turner   June 17, 2000
I know people like this. Perhaps Marcus' mother is a bit far fetched, a mixture of suicide, hippy and stuffy conservative. But it doesn't really jar as all the characters are drawn a little larger than life. Nobody so far has mentioned Ellie, who is a catalyst for Marcus' rite of passage. I loved her character and her own rite of passage when confronted with one of her victims. The pace of the book was gripping without car chases. The half expected kept taking me by surprise. The only thing is that 2 weeks after reading it I cannot remember the final chapter. I could not now tell you what happened in the end without returning to the book. It seemed to run out of steam. Unlike another reviewer I found this one had the edge on High Fidelity. I haven't yet read Fever Pitch but I shall on the strength of my enjoyment of this book. I am surprised that purchasers of this book did not also buy books by Colin Bateman.


About the best thing he's written - up til now   January 16, 2000
A question of supply and demand, we know, and God knows the author is in demand, but that makes me think the supplies come from bandwagons, which I picture as dazzling little kiosks parked all over the place, full of gaudy goodies which cost a fortune and last about a minute. Not in this instance. I loved this book, especially when I'd just approved of 36 year old Will (half cool, half dickhead) finally becoming a member of the human race, and there it said 'he wouldn't even mind being human...full-time.' Rites of passage for his unlikely mate, 12 year old Marcus (names wrong way round, surely?) as well, and sort of feeling your way around relationships with depressive hippy mothers and brand new girlfriends. Good ole Nick Hornby, eh?


A great, easy going read. A real eye opener for Ladist's.   October 11, 1999
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An easy going read which is often humorous and scattered with serious notes, It is well worth a read if you have always been a bit of a lad - A thought provoking exercise for the less conscious amongst us. Well written by Hornby although the ending seemed to lack that little something to keep you there.


Refreshing look at man/boy relationships   September 23, 1999
A breath of fresh air in a subject that can get corny, but doesn't with Nick Hornby. Neither of the two main characters - Will (the 30+ layabout) or Marcus (the 12+ oddball) are very lovable. But Hornby manages to extract some sympathy from the reader for both of them. Will develops an affection for Marcus without ending up hugging him. Marcus stays pretty annoying throughout and, just when you expect Hornby to give in to a sentimental ending, he allows Marcus to start to grow up, lose his dependence and ignore Will - just the way things happen as boys grow up.