DECEMBER 2022 - AudioFile
The beguiling irony in this affecting audiobook begins with the juxtaposition of creative giants who seem at first to be from different planets. But Nick Hornby uses his detailed knowledge of the nineteenth-century English writer Charles Dickens and the late American pop star Prince to show what they shared—extraordinary artistic drive and productivity. During their creative years, they expressed their groundbreaking ideas at an astounding rate. Alex Jennings, with classic British restraint and an appealing range of emotional tones, delivers the author’s research and love of his subject with uncommon vocal appeal. His performance is supremely sensitive to another juxtaposition—that of the two artists’ extraordinary achievements and the challenges they overcame, specifically their childhood deprivation and lower social status. A must-hear for lovers of Dickens and Prince who are interested in the creative process. T.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
10/10/2022
What did writer Charles Dickens and musician Prince have in common? “They have both lived on, of course, but more vigorously than one might have expected,” according to this breezy take on creativity by Hornby (Just Like You). For Hornby, both men are sui generis talents, and he finds no shortage of parallels between them as he unpacks the artists’ lives, the movies (or Dickens’s case, musicals) their work inspired, their mid-career productivity, and their business conflicts (Prince battled with his record label, Dickens railed against intellectual theft). A mixture of speculation and research comprises the section “Women,” which explores Dickens’s and Prince’s wives, lovers, and muses. Hornby writes that Prince was a “relatively rare creature, the androgynous heterosexual,” while Dickens’s penchant for younger women was a “weakness.” At the end of their lives—Prince died from an accidental painkiller overdose, and Dickens was felled by a stroke—Hornby concludes that both had become cultural touchstones, but were hopelessly addicted to work. Hornby’s admiration for his subjects is infectious, though readers who come to this with a basic knowledge with either artist will find much of the terrain covered here familiar. Even so, it’s a zesty tribute to two cultural legends not often spoken about in the same breath. Agent: Georgia Garrett, RCW Literary. (Nov.)
From the Publisher
Praise for Dickens and Prince:
“This pairing—two magnificent creatives, centuries and genres apart— makes stunning sense in the hands of their wisest, wittiest fan.”—People
“’The truth is that nobody can stay hot forever,’ Hornby observes, and so the trick is to always remember that the real prize is ‘a lifetime spent doing what you want to do.’ This feels like the solid kernel of the book’s wisdom, and an insight that Hornby is grounded enough to have arrived at in earnest. . . Hornby isn’t a genius like his two subjects, but his charming, intelligent novels have a common sense both Prince and Dickens lacked, and no artist is well advised to abandon his strength.”—Slate
“If you care about how and why art is made. . .Dickens and Prince was written with you in mind. . . It's hard to think of a contemporary author better equipped to write this book.”—Star Tribune
“Beneath the surface of this fascinating biography, there lies a warm and wise craft book about what it takes to make great art in any century.”—Esquire
“Smart, witty and weirdly convincing… Pop culture is political to Hornby. Beneath this latest book’s stocking-filler-light surface, you can sense a subtle sort of crusade. By pairing these two artists, he’s making a couple of implicit assertions — that Prince is as important as Dickens and that Dickens is as fun as Prince.” —The Times (London)
“His book is both a love letter to two artists who have nourished him and the story of how they 'caught fire and lit up the world.'" —The Guardian
“If you’ve forgotten what a distinct pleasure it is to read Nick Hornby, may I suggest Dickens and Prince.”—San Francisco Chronicle
“I love this. It's smart and funny and elegantly persuasive.” —Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, author of Becoming Dickens
“An ardent fan letter from Hornby that makes you want to re-read Great Expectations while listening to Sign o’ the Times. This slim, companionable volume combines biography—Dickens’s impoverished childhood, Prince’s bruising battle with his record label—as it champions the creative impulse to always make more: more novels, more songs. A love letter to maximalism.” —Vogue
“[Hornby’s] love for the work, for the sheer unbelievably prodigal output of both artists, is intense. And when he does write about Prince and sexuality, he is almost jarringly illuminating, particularly when he wrestles with Prince as shapeshifting sexual avatar.”—Daily Beast
“The point is to be in the company of Nick Hornby, which is always a pleasure. His writing is so quick and generous and conversational and breezy that he could write an entertaining and informative book on the history of mayonnaise. Luckily, he’s chosen two of the most captivating artists of the last 150 years instead.”—Datebook
“No one else could have gotten a book like this published, but no one else could have pulled it off, either.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Hornby’s admiration for his subjects is infectious… a zesty tribute to two cultural legends not often spoken about in the same breath.” —Publishers Weekly
Praise for Nick Hornby:
“Hornby is a writer who dares to be witty, intelligent, and emotionally generous all at once.” —The New York Times
“The clever British storyteller …[has] excellent taste and a smart, irreverent sense of humor.” —The Boston Globe
“Hornby just makes it look easy.” —The Washington Post
DECEMBER 2022 - AudioFile
The beguiling irony in this affecting audiobook begins with the juxtaposition of creative giants who seem at first to be from different planets. But Nick Hornby uses his detailed knowledge of the nineteenth-century English writer Charles Dickens and the late American pop star Prince to show what they shared—extraordinary artistic drive and productivity. During their creative years, they expressed their groundbreaking ideas at an astounding rate. Alex Jennings, with classic British restraint and an appealing range of emotional tones, delivers the author’s research and love of his subject with uncommon vocal appeal. His performance is supremely sensitive to another juxtaposition—that of the two artists’ extraordinary achievements and the challenges they overcame, specifically their childhood deprivation and lower social status. A must-hear for lovers of Dickens and Prince who are interested in the creative process. T.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2022-09-10
Comparing the lives of two protean geniuses and gleaning the lessons thereof.
Hornby considers together the lives of two of "My People—the people I have thought about a lot, over the years, the artists who have shaped me, inspired me, made me think about my own work." This exercise will interest a particular Venn diagram of readers. You don't have to be a fan of Prince, Dickens, and Hornby, but 2 out of 3 would help. Among the qualities that unite Hornby’s two heroes is that they had "no off switch," continuously pouring out work until their deaths, both at the same age, 58. Both had truncated, difficult childhoods; both hit a spectacular creative zenith in their 20s; both went to war with their publishers and damaged their reputations considerably by doing so. Hornby also takes on the idea, popularized in Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers, that virtuosity requires 10,000 hours of practice, putting the focus instead on reading, listening, watching, and bringing himself into the picture, as he does from time to time. "I am closer to being Dickens than being Prince, although of course that's like saying I'm closer to Mars than to Saturn,” he writes. “But I suspect my degree of passion for books, music, TV and movies has never been ‘normal.’ ” In an interesting section on Prince's androgyny, Hornby points out that "Prince's sexuality came from the future”—i.e., now, when the notion of nonbinary gender is part of mainstream culture. Dickens' sexuality “came from the future” only in the sense that he went through a public shaming in the media when his relationship with an 18-year-old girl became public. Most importantly, writes Hornby, “Prince and Dickens tell me, every day, Not good enough. Not quick enough. Not enough. More, more, more. Think quicker, be more ambitious, be more imaginative."
No one else could have gotten a book like this published, but no one else could have pulled it off, either.
