By Nick Hornby | Riverhead Books | 406 pages | $25.95Reading Nick Hornby when he’s at his best – and that’s exactly where he is with his latest novel, Juliet, Naked – is like diving into cool water on a hot summer’s day. It feels so good to get into the world he’s created, and you don’t want to leave it.Hornby is best known for several books that have been made into movies, among them High Fidelity and About a Boy. His facility with dialogue and his unusually likable characters make his books work well on screen. But that fact, along with his often repeated insistence in his articles and interviews that he doesn’t write “literary fiction,” may have caused some to underestimate him. It’s not easy to write novels that are this much fun, and it’s even harder to make it look so effortless.Juliet, Naked is a complex portrait of three characters whose lives intertwine through a strange series of circumstances, but mostly it’s Annie’s story. She’s a familiar type, a quiet, self-effacing 39-year-old intellectual with little confidence or ambition, living in a downmarket seaside town in England, where she runs the local museum. For 15 years, she’s been with Duncan. He teaches at the local college, but his heart is really in his various enthusiasms, for books, movies and music, especially the music of a Bob Dylan-type named Tucker Crowe. Crowe made one critically acclaimed album, called
Naked admiration
Nick Hornby’s latest novel explores the world of music fans in the Internet age.
By Nick Hornby | Riverhead Books | 406 pages | $25.95Reading Nick Hornby when he’s at his best – and that’s exactly where he is with his latest novel, Juliet, Naked – is like diving into cool water on a hot summer’s day. It feels so good to get into the world he’s created, and you don’t want to leave it.Hornby is best known for several books that have been made into movies, among them High Fidelity and About a Boy. His facility with dialogue and his unusually likable characters make his books work well on screen. But that fact, along with his often repeated insistence in his articles and interviews that he doesn’t write “literary fiction,” may have caused some to underestimate him. It’s not easy to write novels that are this much fun, and it’s even harder to make it look so effortless.Juliet, Naked is a complex portrait of three characters whose lives intertwine through a strange series of circumstances, but mostly it’s Annie’s story. She’s a familiar type, a quiet, self-effacing 39-year-old intellectual with little confidence or ambition, living in a downmarket seaside town in England, where she runs the local museum. For 15 years, she’s been with Duncan. He teaches at the local college, but his heart is really in his various enthusiasms, for books, movies and music, especially the music of a Bob Dylan-type named Tucker Crowe. Crowe made one critically acclaimed album, called