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If you now imagine being the long-suffering girlfriend of one of these dudes, you are a long way to understanding the tension at the heart of Hornby's fifth novel, a charming and satirical ode to the pleasures of art and the dangers of loving another's art just a little too much.
Despite being the very definition of an insufferable blowhard, Duncan, the superfan, is the funniest and most pitch-perfect character in the novel. This is the kind of guy whose idea of going on holiday is to drag his girlfriend first to Minneapolis, on a search for clues in the aforementioned public toilet, then to San Francisco, where he ditches her to spend the day casing out the last-known residence of Crowe's long-estranged lover, Juliet Beatty. As he does so, he congratulates himself for being a more "serious" fan than the lone teenager engaged in the same activity because he, unlike the teen, is able to cite Crowe's influences -- "Dylan and Leonard Cohen, of course, but also Dylan Thomas, Johnny Cash, Gram Parsons, Shelly, the Book of Job, Camus, Pinter, Beckett and early Dolly Parton" -- though he must acknowledge to himself that "people who didn't understand all this might look at them and decide, erroneously, that they were similar. Both of them had the same need to stand in front of fucking Juliet's house, for example." Though Duncan, a middle-aged professor, has a few other interests -- 1970s American cinema, the novels of Nathanael West, The Wire -- everything else is just a "flirtation": "Tucker Crowe was his life-partner. If Tucker Crowe were to die -- to die in real life, as it were, rather than creatively -- Duncan would lead the mourning." (He has, naturally, already prepared the obituary).
This doesn't sit particularly well with the person who seems to be his actual life partner, Annie, who feels "less like a girlfriend than a school chum who'd come to visit on the holidays and stayed for the next twenty years." As two of the few liberal arts graduates in a sleepy seaside English town called Gooleness -- at each mentionof it I could hear Morrissey crooning about "the seaside town / they forgot to close down" -- they were matched up by friends in a sort of "arranged marriage" in their early 20s, then "stayed like that forever, stuck in a perpetual postgraduate world where gigs and books and films mattered more to them than they did to other people of their age." At 39, Annie works at the local museum, where she curates an exhibit on perhaps the most exciting year in the town's history, the summer of '64, when the Stones played and a 25-foot shark washed up on the local beach and died. But she is beginning to feel that all their free time is "sort of...decadent" and idly wishes for a child, though "neither of them would have felt comfortable applying cement to their relationship in that way."
Enter Tucker Crowe to disturb their torpor. By chance, Annie is the only one at home when the postman comes bearing Duncan's Holy Grail, a freshly released promo CD of a stripped-down version of Juliet, suitably named Juliet Naked. In a fit of disobedience, she listens to it first. She is right to assume that Duncan will take this as an act of "naked aggression," but then she commits an even more unpardonable sin: She finds it boring ("like listening to one of those people you've never heard of who comes onstage at lunchtime in a folk festival"). Naturally Duncan, following the music geek's rule that a track's genius is in direct ratio to its obscurity, finds the record revelatory and takes Annie's indifference to it as, in her words, "a moral failing" and a "character weakness." Annie, in a rare act of spunk, posts her dissenting opinion next to Duncan's on the Crowe fan site (though he remains skeptical that she is "qualified" to match the "expertise" of his fellow Internet Crowologists).
Here's where things get good: Tucker Crowe, the genius, as it turns out, is now a stay-at-home Little League dad of a six-year-old boy, living in suburban Pennsylvania, and supported by his much younger wife. The wild-eyed, bearded man thought to be Crowe by Duncan and his cronies is actually Crowe's neighbor, formerly known as Farmer John, who, since being captured on camera by a crazed Crowe fan who mistook him for his hero, is now known as Fucker (for "Fake Tucker," a nickname even funnier when it comes out of the mouth of Crowe's six-year-old, Jackson). Annie learns all this when Crowe, who prefers her seemingly blasphemous review to Duncan's, strikes up an email romance with her. Meanwhile, the world's leading Crowologist, disillusioned by his tone-deaf girlfriend, takes a stab at having his first-ever affair, choosing a henna-haired colleague.
Once one realizes that the narrative train seems to be headed toward a fanboy being cuckolded by his true "life partner," the notion is so delicious that one can forgive a few rom-com-ready sleights of hand. One tries not to think to hard about the silliness of both Annie and Tucker being conveniently ditched by their unfaithful partners within 24 hours of one another or to wonder aloud if a 55-year-old "serial husband" whose six-year-old son is already obsessed with his father's impending mortality is really the best partner for a 39-year-old childless woman. Instead, one can cackle with wicked appreciation when Duncan laments, "If you imagined it all as a department store, he was in basement, with the lamps and the dishes; the Juliets were all in Ladies Intimates, a couple of escalator rides away" -- all the while not knowing that the lamp he recently cast off is on the fast track to possibly becoming his hero's new Juliet.
Hornby has the grace and restraint to duck out while the fate of all of his characters are still an open question: In the words of Tucker: "The truth about life is was that nothing ever ended until you died, and even then you just left a whole bunch of unresolved narratives behind you." But once again, he's crafted a perfect pop song of a novel: Warm and funny, with a disarmingly familiar chorus of voices that disguises just how difficult this kind of act is to pull off. --Amy Benfer
Amy Benfer has worked as an editor and staff writer at Salon, Legal Affairs, and Paper magazine. Her reviews and features on books have appeared in Salon, The San Francisco Chronicle Book Review, The Believer, Kirkus, and The New York Times Book Review.
However, to dismiss Hornby's writing as the testosterone-laced equivalent of "chick lit" is to seriously underestimate his talent. The New York Times Book Review put it this way: "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." (As further proof of his standing in the literary community, a group of distinguished colleagues -- including Germaine Greer, Zadie Smith, and Doris Lessing -- honored Hornby with the 2003 London Award.)
After graduating from Cambridge, Hornby worked a succession of jobs (he taught school, gave language classes, and served as a host for Samsung executives visiting the U.K.) before becoming a journalist. He wrote a series of pop culture columns for the Independent and wrote about music, books, and sports for Esquire, The Sunday Times, Elle, and the Times Literary Supplement. Then, in 1992, Hornby published a hilarious sports memoir about his maniacal obsession with Britain's Arsenal Football Club. A huge bestseller, Fever Pitch won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award and helped to give soccer a cachet far beyond its formerly "blokey" appeal. His debut novel, High Fidelity, appeared in 1995. Teeming with hip music and pop culture references, this story of a thirty-something record store owner lamenting his failed romantic relationships struck a responsive chord with readers on both sides of the Pond, paving the way for his bestselling 1998 follow-up, About a Boy.
Critical praise and literary honors have followed Hornby throughout his career: His 2001 novel How to Be Good won the WH Smith Fiction Award and was nominated for a Booker Prize; A Long Way Down (2005) was shortlisted for both the Whitbread Novel Award and the Commonwealth Writers Prize. He is the author of a bestselling novel for young adults (Slam), and his nonfiction essays have been collected into several anthologies, including The Polysyllabic Spree, Housekeeping vs. the Dirt, and Songbook (published in the UK as 31 Songs). He also serves as a pop music critic for The New Yorker.
Hornby has admitted that when he first began writing, voice was a problem. "Everything changed for me when I read Anne Tyler, Raymond Carver, Richard Ford, and Lorrie Moore, all in about '86-'87," he has said. " ... voice, tone, simplicity, humour, soul ... all of these things seemed to be missing from the contemporary English fiction I'd looked at, and I knew then what I wanted to do."
Hornby is the father of an autistic son, Danny. He is also a co-founder of TreeHouse, an English charity school for autistic children. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of Speaking with the Angel, an anthology of stories he edited in 2002, was donated to TreeHouse.
Writer Zadie Smith has credited Hornby for "reintrocuding the English novel to its long-lost domestic roots."
Music is still paramount in Hornby's life. He has a longstanding relationship with the American rock group Marah and has collaborated with them in music/spoken word performances on several occasions.
Hornby writes a monthly column, "Stuff I've Been Reading," for The Believer , a literary magazine published by Dave Eggers's McSweeney's publishing house.
Read this book in galleys and, after a slow start, couldn't help liking it. As with a lot of people, I suppose, I've enjoyed movie adaptations of Hornby's books (e.g., High Fidelity and About a Boy) without ever turning to the books themselves. I confess I spent a lot of time reading Juliet, Naked envisioning it as a movie (I'll go on record predicting that Emma Thompson will play Anne), and I suspect Hornby does the same. But that's a good thing. His writing is direct, uncomplicated, unshowy -- almost unliterary, if you will. And thanks to his characters mostly being in "the middle way" -- that is, older than younger -- as I am I may have appreciated it more than would someone, say, under 30 (or maybe even 40). That said, though it focuses on a fictional washed up American pop singer you needn't be a huge music fan to appreciate the story line. Similarly, the English Hornby does a fine job of handling the collision of English and American characters and their preconceptions and prejudices. So give it a go, and if you're impatient after 50 pages try another 50. Hornby takes a while to warm up. But when he does, I found his characters and their issues involving and entertaining.
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted October 19, 2009
I've read most of Hornby's novels and have been a fan since reading the first. As with the other books, I grew attached to the main characters and was sorry to have the story end knowing I wouldn't "see" them again.
I actually did the audiobook which was fabulous because of the accents and I found myself more than once laughing out loud. I would leave for work in a hurry just so I could get back to listening to the CD in my car! Nick Hornby is very witty and now I am back in the waiting mode for his next book to come along.
Regarding a movie version of Juliet, Naked - Emma Thompson is 50 and older than Annie and I don't see that at all (and I'm an Emma fan - just don't see her as Annie).
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted February 7, 2012
Highly recommend this one. Check it out. If liked High Fidelity you'll like this book. I would recommend this book for a book club discussion on books with a musical theme.
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Posted February 2, 2012
Far from one of Horny's best reads. I'll simply say it's just okay.
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Posted December 31, 2011
Loved this
Anonymous
Posted November 26, 2011
I started reading Juliet, Naked last night, but fell asleep around two in the morning due to exhaustion. The first thing I did when I woke up? Started from where I had left off. The book is well-written, witty, and had a wonderful use of comedy to ease the conflict. The characters have so much depth, there's not a Mary Sue or Gary Stu within the pages. They all have flaws they're trying to come to terms with. Even Tucker's son, six-year-old Jackson, says the most entertaining things. It's definitely a book where you'll be reading and Hornby has written something so magnificent you want to write it down or contemplate it for a few minutes. The plot can be predictable at times, but ultimately you'll be too absorbed in his writing that what's predictable seems to hold little of importance and what you never saw coming seems all the more shocking. I would recommend the novel to ANYONE!
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Posted June 12, 2011
Loved it.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted January 27, 2011
Hornby uses the word "malodorous" three times in this book -- and I shall use it once here to describe this book overall.
Hornby does a decent job setting up the characters. Duncan is daft. Annie is wonderful. But Tucker was recycled from About A Boy -- a used up songwriter.
Why I am giving this book such a poor review is the ending. It seems that, if I invested the time to follow the lives of these three characters, that investment should at least be paid off with a clear sense of where they are going at the end. A sense of finality. Instead, after reading the book, I feel the same existential angst that Annie has through the book -- that I have wasted my time.
Annie called Crowe on his uninspired performance, and I'm doing the same here with Hornby. This is not his best work. When I saw the name "Horby", I expected more.
Two stars from me -- at least Hornby still gets those moments of poignancy right.
"That seemed like an ambition, of sorts: to get to a stage where she wanted to hang herself because putting a T-shirt on a child's bed seemed indicative of the slow and painful death of the spirit. At the moment, she wanted to hang herself because it seemed like the first tiny glimmers of a rebirth." (pg. 376)
As I was perusing the book stands last weekend, I stumbled upon Nick Hornby's latest novel, Juliet Naked. An avid High Fidelity fan (both the book and the movie), I was eager to pick up Hornby's new book and devour it immediately.
Juliet, Naked is so essential Hornby that you could pick it up with the author's name scrubbed out and still know it was him. His writing is straightforward, thoughtful, and easy. But isn't easy to be confused with lack of depth, because in his easy writing comes alive three characters fleshed out to their basest level, giving readers a look into the lives of very different people with one thing in common: Tucker Crowe.
Tucker Crowe is the focal point of the book. Crowe is a former 80's rock star with a cult following due to his twenty-year disappearance. As with many Hornby novels, he describes Crowe's music, lyrics, and sound with such authenticity that you start to believe that Crowe was an actual musician, with Hornby writing the biography. I'm continually amazed with Hornby's ability to stay within a particular few genres of music from book to book and still maintain a level of curiosity in his characters. It's almost sad that there wasn't a soundtrack to go along with this of Crowe's music.
The essence of a good book, to me, is the internal struggle that a character feels. However, the genius comes in when the author doesn't make it hard to see into that while at the same time not dumbing anything down. Hornby is a master at this, especially one-liners that are so basic but are packed with pounds of meaning. A cousin of this are his statements of profound insight, presented in a non-pretentious and warm way:
"But then that's what art is, sometimes, he always felt: something that confers advantages" (pg. 347-348).
Hornby's English wit comes across like a siren on a fire truck, but is also masterful in his American comedy, making the transition between the two seamless and natural. And, as he is known, he can portray the thoughts and actions of a child in some of the most realistic situations, providing a wonderfully realistic landscape for relationships with all the supporting roles.
Overall it's a great read for fans of Hornby's writing. I hate to think this, but unfortunately some of his writing may be seen as overdramatic and pompous if you don't view music as a vehicle for change or a heavy instrument producing significant life lessons. What I'm saying is that you have to love music to appreciate his writing, plain and simple.
Pick it up if you can. It's a quick read at 406 pages and I finished in about three days. Up next: The Help.
"Juliet, Naked," is an amazing book. I love love love it!!! It starts off with Annie and Duncan who seem to be a happy English couple roaming around the United States on vacation. Early on in the novel it turns out that Annie craves a baby that Duncan cannot deliver, or is too delusional, and wrapped up in his own obsession with Tucker Crowe, a Dylan-esque recluse that has been silent for 20 years. Duncan has an online community where he is the guru on Tucker Crowe, when he wasn't that big of a performer to begin with. Evidently, Crowe had some sort of epiphany in a Minnesota bar bathroom, supposedly, that caused this 20 year hiatus. In the meantime Annie disagrees with Duncan's obsession and writes her own review of a bootleg copy of an acoustic, raw version of Tucker's hit "Juliet." Annie and Duncan have been in a 15 year relationship that has been going nowhere, Duncan has an affair and the affair breaks up. This coincides with the ending of Crowe's relationship, and the meeting(s) of one of his five children. Crowe finds himself in London when one of his daughters is in distress, and has a heart attack. I really didn't do the book justice, because it is just that amazing. You will have to read the book to find out what happens. This books is creative and original.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Beth_Cone
Posted May 5, 2010
Nick Hornby, the pop music novelist of the 80s generation, has done it again! "Juliet Naked" tells the fictional story of a retired eighties music icon, the faraway girlfriend of an obsessed fan, and what happens when they meet.
Horby is a master at creating interesting, offbeat characters. This novel is no exception. Although the characters are quirky, they are sympathetic because he adds endearing, realistic qualities.
While the story is not a page-turner at first, as the reader gets to know the characters, the story moves along at a good pace. I finished this book in one day.
Horby is great at visuals. I am looking forward to a film adaptation!
I would recommend this novel to bookclubs and individual readers alike. The issues about relationships, artists, success and fear of failure, and intimacy are prime for discussion.
WhirlyBerly
Posted April 24, 2010
I bought this for a trip from the east to west coast, and it was suitable for that venture. At that moment, I could relate to the synopsis on the book jacket, being a middle-aged woman flying west to visit with an aging rocker friend. The story is nothing spectacular...basically a quick read if you have nothing else. The story moves along, but it's not remarkable...and even a bit predictable. The writing style is not challenging, and the characters are sort of treacly and flat.
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Posted April 22, 2010
Nick Hornby is one of my favorite authors, so when I saw Juliet, Naked I picked it up right away. I was disappointed by this one and had a very hard time getting through it. I travel a lot, so only took it on the plane to read and ended up putting it down because it just didn't grab me. I was determined however, to see it through to the end and finally completed it four months after first picking it up.
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Posted March 27, 2010
I Also Recommend:
He just gets it. All of his books have interesting plots, characters and twists. I especially loved this one and the fact he used the names "Tucker Crowe" and "Jackson Crowe" as two of the lead characters in the book - very ironic on a book about aging rockers that had a small following. The story moved along so easily and without the usual hiccups as in some other novels that I couldn't put it down and read it in one sitting. From beginning to end so very satisfying. I receommend it to anyone.
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Posted February 20, 2010
I Also Recommend:
Nick has continued to perpetuate his legend once again. His flawless prose and ceaseless creativity results in yet another masterpiece. His ability to develop relatable, loveable, hopelessly romantic, and above all, darkly comedic characters has a draw for almost any reader. Juliet, Naked is an examination of how regret over paths not taken, enthusiansm over the unimportant, and pure old fashioned chance, all play a part in discovering who we are cabable of being, not who we already are.
Love it.
I think by this point, most readers are already Nick Hornby fans, but I have been recommending the book out to those who are not in the know, although, I think A Long Way Down is a better "first time" for Hornby virgins. This book had all the great Hornbyisms..the sarcasim, constant internal struggles of self understanding, and an understated hipness. He sees things for what they really are and his characters are so real because of it.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.I've read of all of Nick Hornby's books, and the film version of "High Fidelity" is my favorite movie of all time, so when I heard Horby was releasing another music-themed book, I was ecstatic. It was not quite what I expected, but once again Horny's grasp of relationships and human behavior is spell-binding and hilarious, with a touch of painful reality at times, too. Definitely check out "Juliet Naked" if you're a Hornby fan!
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted November 21, 2009
Hornby is one of the authors I always enjoy, and I got "Juliet, Naked" as soon as I saw it at B&N. It was good, but not great, not what I've come to expect from Hornby. Also, it's on the short side, so it's a pretty quick read. I enjoyed the book -- interesting situations, quirky characters -- but overall I was a bit disappointed.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.This was great reading. Couldnt put it down, and liked the way it didnt have a begining, middle, end. Especially a sissy ending. It was like how you try to tell a story about a person to someone who has no clue about this person.
It was REAL!!
Anonymous
Posted April 16, 2010
No text was provided for this review.
Overview
Now in paperback-The New York Times bestselling novel of rock 'n roll, super fandom, and love, by the beloved author of About a Boy and High Fidelity.Nick Hornby returns to his roots-music and messy relationships-in this funny and touching new novel which thoughtfully and sympathetically looks at how lives can be wasted but how they are never beyond redemption. Annie lives in a dull town on England's bleak east coast and is in a relationship with Duncan which mirrors the place; Tucker was once a brilliant songwriter and performer, who's gone into seclusion in rural America-or at least that's what his fans think. Duncan is obsessed with Tucker's work, ...