Nick Hornby is the author of High Fidelity, About a Boy, and other novels of early-21st-century British manhood. Hornby's first book, Fever Pitch (1992), described his obsession with the football team Arsenal, and made him a literary star in the United Kingdom. His subsequent novels, High Fidelity (1995) and About a Boy (1998), sealed his reputation worldwide as a crafty observer (and sometime victim) of pop music and pop culture. In addition to his novels, Hornby has written non-fiction for magazines, including pop music criticism for The New Yorker. Hornby's books have also been made into successful movies: Fever Pitch (1997) starred Colin Firth, High Fidelity (2002) was relocated from England to the United States and starred John Cusack and About a Boy (2002) starred Hugh Grant. His other books include How to Be Good (2001), Long Way Down (2005) and the musical reverie 31 Songs (2003).
Fever Pitch was also remade in the U.S. as a 2005 film starring Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore, with baseball's Boston Red Sox replacing the Arsenal Gunners as the team in question... Hornby's son Danny (b. 1993) is autistic, and in 1997 Hornby co-founded TreeHouse, an educational charity for children with autism.
Career Highlights: High Fidelity, About a Boy, Fever Pitch
First Major Screen Credit: Fever Pitch (1997)
Biography
Nicknamed by journalists as "the maestro of the male confessional," author Nick Hornby initially gained popularity through the troubled male protagonists of his first three novels -- Fever Pitch, High Fidelity, About a Boy -- and their eventual film adaptations. Yet, with the female narrator of his fourth book, How to Be Good, and his screenwriting partnership with Emma Thompson, he proved that his pop sensibilities -- Hornby is known for his references to popular culture, especially sports and music -- are not gender specific.
Born on April 17, 1957 in Maidenhead, England, Hornby is the son of businessman Sir Derek Hornby. When the younger Hornby was 11 years old, his parents divorced and his father began taking him to watch the North London Premier League club Arsenal during their visits. He ultimately developed into a loyal, and somewhat irrational, fan of the team. Hornby also became a dedicated reader, absorbing everything from comic books to Lorrie Moore. As an English Literature major at Cambridge University, he began composing stage plays, screenplays, and radio plays in his spare time. A professor then introduced Hornby to novelist Anne Tyler's Dinner at a Homesick Restaurant, which inspired him to write prose.
After graduating, Hornby worked a series of jobs -- he taught grade school, gave language classes, and served as host for Samsung executives visiting the U.K. -- before becoming a paid journalist. He composed a pop culture column for the Independent, and wrote about books and sports for publications like Esquire and the Sunday Times. In 1992, he published his first book, Contemporary American Fiction, a collection of essays on American writers such as Ann Beattie, Raymond Carver, and Tobias Wolff. That same year, he released Fever Pitch, a memoir about being a devoted (and irrational) Arsenal fan since childhood. The work was a surprise hit, earning countless acclaim and selling out copies years into its release.
Hornby finished his first novel, High Fidelity, in 1995. The story of a record shop owner whose only lasting relationship is with pop music, High Fidelity earned accolades for both its compassion and its flippant refusal to compromise itself for political correctness. Hornby followed its success with the screen adaptation of Fever Pitch (1997), a four-star dramatic comedy starring Colin Firth as a schoolteacher struggling to sustain a romance against the backdrop of Arsenal's first championship season in 18 years. He also made a cameo appearance in the film.
In 1998, Hornby published About a Boy, a novel inspired in part by the children (especially the badly behaved adolescent girls) that he encountered as a teacher. The story follows Will, an immature single man, and Marcus, a struggling preadolescent, as they grow up together. His most favorably reviewed book to date, About a Boy, helped its author earn the E.M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1999.
Unlike with Fever Pitch, Hornby did not pen the film adaptations of High Fidelity and About a Boy. Co-written by its star John Cusack and helmed by legendary British director Stephen Frears, High Fidelity opened in 2000 to rave reviews and ended the year on many top ten lists. Despite having its setting transplanted from London to Chicago, the film still owed much of its success to its source material. About a Boy faired even better -- after buying the rights to the book for nearly three million dollars, Robert De Niro's Tribeca Films and Working Title commissioned What's Eating Gilbert Grape creator Peter Hedges to draft the screenplay. The film went into production under the direction of brothers Chris and Paul Weitz with Hugh Grant and Nicholas Hoult in the lead roles and Hornby as an executive producer. Released in 2002, critics hailed About a Boy as the best Hornby adaptation to date.
While enjoying his big-screen success, Hornby published How to Be Good, which earned him Britain's prestigious W.H. Smith Fiction Award in 2002. He also began working on several screenplays, including a collaboration with Academy Award-winning writer Emma Thompson. He continues to contribute to Time Out, the Sunday Times, the Times Literary Supplement, and is the pop music reviewer for the New Yorker. The parents of an autistic son, Hornby and his ex-wife founded TreeHouse, a school for autistic children in London. In 2000, he edited a collection of short stories entitled Speaking With the Angel to raise funds for the school. The book includes writings by Colin Firth, Irvine Welsh, and Helen Fielding. ~ Aubry Anne D'Arminio, All Movie Guide
Nick Hornby (born 17 April 1957) is an Englishnovelist and essayist. He is best known for the novels High Fidelity, About a Boy and for the football memoir Fever Pitch. His work frequently touches upon music, sports, and the both aimless and obsessive natures of his protagonists.
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 15-year-old skateboarder named Sam whose life changes drastically when his girlfriend gets pregnant.
In October 2008, on the podcastJordan, 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 is released his latest novel entitled Juliet, Naked in September 2009. On the same wavelength as his first novel High Fidelity, he 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 AmericanizedFever 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[citation needed].
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 its 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]
"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.
