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Nick Hornby
Nick Hornby, 2009
Born	17 April 1957 (1957-04-17) (age 52) Redhill, Surrey, England
Occupation	Writer, Editor
Nationality	English
Writing period	1992-present
Genres	Fiction, Non-fiction
Influences Anne Tyler, Lorrie Moore

Nick Hornby (born 17 April 1957) is an English novelist and essayist. He is best known for the novels High Fidelity, About a Boy and for the football (soccer) memoir Fever Pitch. His work frequently touches upon music, sports, and the both aimless and obsessive natures of his protagonists.

Life and career

Hornby was born in Redhill, Surrey, England. Hornby's sister, Gill, is married to writer Robert Harris.^[1] He was brought up in Maidenhead and was educated at Maidenhead Grammar School and Jesus College, Cambridge. His parents divorced when he was eleven.

Hornby's first published book, 1992's Fever Pitch, is an autobiographical story detailing his fanatical support for Arsenal Football Club. As a result, Hornby received the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award. In 1997 the memoir was adapted for film in the UK and in 2005 an American remake was released, following Jimmy Fallon's obsession with the Boston Red Sox. With the book's success, Hornby began to publish articles in the Sunday Times, Time Out and the Times Literary Supplement, in addition to his music reviews for the New Yorker. High Fidelity—his second book and first novel—was published in 1995. The novel, about a neurotic record collector and his failed relationships, was adapted into a 2000 film starring John Cusack and a Broadway musical in 2006.

His third novel, About a Boy, published in 1998, is about two "boys" -- Marcus, an awkward yet endearing adolescent from a single parent family, and the free floating, mid-30s Will Freeman who overcomes his own immaturity and self-centeredness through his growing relationship with Marcus. Hugh Grant and Nicholas Hoult starred in the 2002 movie version. In 1999 Hornby received the E. M. Forster Award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

The novel How to Be Good was published in 2001. The female protagonist in the novel explores contemporary morals, marriage and parenthood. It won the WH Smith Award for Fiction in 2002. A part of the money he earned with his next book Speaking with the Angel in 2002 was donated to TreeHouse, a charity for children with autism, the disorder that affects Hornby's own son. He was editor of the book, which contained twelve short stories written by his friends. He also contributed to the collection with the story "NippleJesus."^[2] In 2003 Hornby wrote a collection of essays on selected popular songs and the emotional resonance they carry, called 31 Songs (known in the US as Songbook). Also in 2003, Hornby was awarded the London Award 2003, an award that was selected by fellow writers.^[3]

Hornby has also written essays on various aspects of popular culture, and in particular he has become known for his writing on pop music and mix tape enthusiasts. He also began writing a book review column, "Stuff I've Been Reading," for the monthly magazine The Believer that ran through September 2008; all of these articles are collected between The Polysyllabic Spree (2004), Housekeeping vs. The Dirt (2006), and Shakespeare Wrote for Money (2008).

Hornby's novel A Long Way Down was published in 2005. It was on the shortlist for the Whitbread Novel Award. Hornby has also edited two sports-related anthologies: My Favourite Year and The Picador Book of Sports Writing.

Hornby's book Slam was released on 16 October 2007, is his first novel for young adults and was recognized by the Young Adult Library Services Association as a 2008 Best Book for Young Adults. The protagonist of Slam is a 16-year-old skateboarder named Sam whose life changes drastically when his girlfriend gets pregnant.

In October 2008, on the podcast Jordan, Jesse, Go!, Nick Hornby helped to name both a miniature and full-sized horse for two different Americans.^[4]

In November 2008, Hornby came Number 4 in The Times list of the "50 Worst Famous Football Fans". He was credited for, amongst other things, the fact that one is now likely to be sitting next to a solicitor at a football match.^[5]

Hornby released his latest novel entitled Juliet, Naked in September 2009. On the same wavelength as his first novel High Fidelity, the book is about a reclusive '80s rock star who is forced out of isolation when the re-release of his most famous album brings him into contact with some of his most passionate fans. This synopsis was revealed to The Guardian newspaper as part of "What not to miss in 2009: books".^[6]

Adaptations

Film

Several of Hornby's books have made the jump from page to screen. Hornby wrote the screenplay for the first, a 1997 British adaptation of Fever Pitch, starring Colin Firth. It was followed in 2000 by High Fidelity, starring John Cusack; this adaptation was notable in that the action was shifted from London to Chicago. After this success, About a Boy was quickly picked up, and released in 2002, starring Hugh Grant. An Americanized Fever Pitch, in which Jimmy Fallon plays a hopelessly addicted Boston Red Sox fan who tries to reconcile his love of the game with that of his girlfriend (Drew Barrymore), was released in 2005. It appears likely that A Long Way Down will also be adapted; Johnny Depp purchased film rights to the book before it was published.

Internet

After the release of "Songbook," McSweeney's accepted online submissions from authors writing about their favorite songs in the same manner as Hornby. These submissions were posted to the McSweeney's website. Additionally, The Blue Scarf is a blog adaptation of Hornby's collection.

Stage

High Fidelity was also the basis for a 2006 musical, which shifted the action to Brooklyn; its book is by David Lindsay-Abaire, with lyrics by Amanda Green and music created by Tom Kitt. The production ran for a month in Boston, then moved to Broadway, closing after 18 previews and 14 regular performances.

Music

The importance of music in Hornby's novels, and in his life, is evidenced by his long-standing and fruitful collaborations with the rock band Marah, fronted by Dave and Serge Bielanko. Hornby has even toured in the USA and Europe with the band, joining them on stage to read his own essays about particular moments and performers in his own musical history which have had a particular meaning for him. The band typically follows each of Hornby's essays, about subjects including Bob Marley, Rory Gallagher and The Clash, by playing a song by each of those artists.

Hornby and Marah (whose small but intensely dedicated band of fans also includes Stephen King and Bruce Springsteen) have worked together on this project over time, and together put on a show of all the essays and songs, concluding with his essay about Marah themselves, and followed by a full concert of the band's own songs.

One of the main characters in Hornby's A Long Way Down, a down on his luck rock singer delivering pizzas in north London and considering suicide on the last day of 1999, is widely supposed to have been inspired by Serge Bielanko's own experiences in London.

Hornby's music criticism (most notably for The New Yorker and in his own Songbook) has been widely criticised by writers such as Kevin Dettmar (in his book Is Rock Dead), Curtis White (in an essay at www.centreforbookculture.org, titled "Kid Adorno"),^[7] Barry Faulk and Simon Reynolds for his embrace of rock traditionalism and conservative take on post-rock and other experimental musics (exemplified in Hornby's negative review of the Radiohead album Kid A: "Beyond the Pale," New Yorker, 30 October 2000).

Hornby was also planning on collaborating with American singer/songwriter Ben Folds, with the aim of recording an album over a span of just 3 days. Folds would write the music, with Hornby contributing lyrics. This project is currently in progress, with the first song, entitled Picture Window, recently released on Ben Folds' website.^[8] A bootleg version of a song about Levi Johnston written by Hornby and Folds and performed by Folds, appeared on the internet.^[9]

Bibliography

Novels

• (1995) High Fidelity
• (1998) About a Boy
• (2001) How to Be Good
• (2005) A Long Way Down
• (2007) Slam
• (2009) Juliet, Naked

Short Stories

• (1998) Faith

Non-fiction

• (1992) Contemporary American Fiction ISBN 0312042132
• (1992) Fever Pitch ISBN 0-14-029344-2
• (2003) 31 Songs ISBN 0-14-101340-0 (Also published as Songbook in the US, ISBN 1-57-322356-5)
• (2004) The Polysyllabic Spree ISBN 1-932416-24-2
• (2006) Housekeeping vs. the Dirt ISBN 1-932416-59-5
• (2008) Shakespeare Wrote for Money ISBN 1-934781-29-0

Anthologies edited

• (1993) My Favourite Year: A Collection of Football Writing ISBN 0-7538-1441-2
• (1996) The Picador Book of Sportswriting ISBN 0-330-33133-7
• (2000) Speaking with the Angel (2000) ISBN 0-14-029678-6
• (2005) Otherwise Pandemonium ISBN 0-14-102251-5

Film adaptations

• 1997 Fever Pitch — directed by David Evans; screenplay by Nick Hornby
• 2000 High Fidelity — directed by Stephen Frears
• 2002 About a Boy — directed by Chris and Paul Weitz
• 2005 Fever Pitch — directed by Bob and Peter Farrelly
• 2009 An Education — directed by Lone Scherfig, screenplay Hornby

References

Further reading

• "Inarticulate Expression of Love" [radio transcript]. 2008. In Talking to Kinky and Karlheinz - 170 musicians get vocal on The Music Show ed. Anni Heino, 186-193. Sydney: ABC Books. ISBN 9780733320088.
• O’Brien, C. (1 October 2001). "About a teenager". Men (The Times). http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/men/article2561972.ece. Retrieved 3 October 2007.  

External links

• US Official site from publisher Penguin Books
• Nick Hornby at the Internet Movie Database
• 2007 audio interview with Hornby on Public Radio International program The Sound of Young America
• BBC News 2002: Movie hype helps Hornby
• Interview with Hornby on NPR's Fresh Air (15 June 2005)
• 2003 Q&A with author
• Interview with Hornby on NPR's Fresh Air (26 September 1995)
• Nick Hornby at Contemporary Writers
• Video: Nick Hornby w/ Marah - London 4/06/06
• Unofficial Fan Site

From Wikiquote

Nick Hornby (born 1957-04-17) is an English novelist and essayist.

Sourced

• By the early seventies I had become an Englishman — that is to say, I hated England just as much as half my compatriots seemed to do.
  • Fever Pitch [ISBN 0140293442] (1992)

• As I get older, the tyranny that football exerts over my life, and therefore over the lives of the people around me, is less reasonable and less attractive.
  • Fever Pitch (1992)

• I fell in love with football as I was later to fall in love with women: suddenly, inexplicably, uncritically, giving no thought to the pain or disruption it would bring with it.
  • Fever Pitch (1992)

• Where's the superficial? I was, and therefore am, dim, gloomy, a drag, unfashionable, unfanciable, and awkward. This doesn't seem like superficial to me. These aren't flesh wounds. These are life-threatening thrusts into the internal organs.
  • High Fidelity (1996)

• I’ve been thinking with my guts since I was fourteen years old, and, frankly, I think my guts have shit for brains.
  • High Fidelity (1996)

• Then I lost it. Kinda lost it all, you know. Faith, dignity, about fifteen pounds.
  • High Fidelity (1996)

• There had been times when he knew, somewhere in him, that he would get used to it, whatever it was, because he had learnt that some hard things became softer after a very little while.
  • About a Boy (1998), Ch. 3

• Each day was a bad day, but he survived by kidding himself that each day was somehow unconnected to the day before.
  • About a Boy (1998), Ch. 17

• These feelings were exactly what he had been so afraid of, and this was why he had been so sure that falling in love was rubbish, and, surprise surprise, it was rubbish, and ... and it was too late.
  • About a Boy (1998)

• And after tea, we play Junior Scabble. We are the ideal nuclear family. We eat together, we play improving board games instead of watching television, we smile alot. I fear that at any moment I may kill somebody.
  • How to be Good (2001)

• What if a sense of humour is like hair - something a lot of man lose as they get older?
  • How to be Good (2001)

• Indeed, there is a moment on the first CD — the electrifying opening to "I Got Loaded," which sounds like an R&B standard but isn’t — when you might find yourself asking whether anyone who has ever been smitten by pop music can fail to have his heart stopped by the chords, the swing, and, once again, Steve Berlin’s wonderfully greasy sax.
  • On the Los Lobos boxed set El Cancionero, from Songbook, published in England as 31 Songs (2003)

• Self-pity is an ignoble emotion, but we all feel it, and the orthodox critical line that it represents some kind of artistic flaw is dubious, a form of emotional correctness.
  • Songbook (2003)

• I'm sorry, but there's no disturbed mental balance here, my friend. I'd say he got it just right. Bad thing upon bad thing upon bad thing... Surely that's fair enough? Surely the coroner's report should read, "He took his own life after sober and careful contemplation of the fucking shambles it had become."
  • A Long Way Down (2005)

• But I'd felt as if I'd pissed my life away in the same way that you can piss money away. I'd had a life, full of kids and wives and jobs and all the usual stuff, and I'd somehow managed to mislay it. No, you see, that's not right. I knew where my life was, just as you know where the money goes when you piss it away. I hadn't mislaid it at all. I'd spent it.
  • A Long Way Down (2005)

• And another way of explaining it is that shit happens, and there's no space too small, too dark and airless and fucking hopeless, for people to crawl into.
  • A Long Way Down (2005)

• I couldn't get the mood back; it was as if one of the kids had woken up just as Cindy and I were starting to make love. I hadn't changed my mind, and I still knew that I'd have to do it sometime. It's just that I knew I wasn't going to be able to do it in the next five minutes.
  • A Long Way Down (2005)

• I wanted to make my life short, and I was at a party in Toppers' Hose, and the coincidence was too much. It was like a message from God. OK, it was disappointing that all God had to say to me was, like, Jump off a roof, but I didn't blame him. What else was he supposed to tell me?
  • A Long Way Down (2005)

External links

Wikipedia has an article about:

Nick Hornby

Wikipedia has an article about:

Fever Pitch

Wikipedia has an article about:

About a Boy