Hitting the right notes
If Nick Hornby’s first book, Fever Pitch, was about a man’s obsession with a football club, his latest hinges on a man’s obsession with a 1980s musician.
Annie, a curator, is the protagonist. She loves Duncan, a lecturer, but doesn’t know why. Duncan is obsessed with Tucker Crowe, a famous but fading musician. Being a “Crowologist”, he undertakes a Crowe pilgrimage to Minneapolis, and helps keep the legend alive via Internet message boards and websites.
Annie and Duncan have been together 15 long years. She likes some of Crowe’s music but is not a fan. Things change when Crowe releases a new album, Juliet Naked. It is a rehash of an earlier album, Juliet. Duncan considers the new one a masterpiece, but Annie posts an unenthusiastic review on a fanzine. To her surprise, Crowe responds to it. A relationship develops between Crowe and Annie.
After Crowe’s entry, the tale is predictable. But the book is saved by Hornby’s witty, engaging writing style, and his characters.
Crowe is the quintessential rock star who in his heyday had liaisons with many women. Hornby writes, “His whole life slipped away with him noticing nothing.” But Crowe’s relationship with his six-year-old son Jackson offers some of the sweetest passages of the book. Duncan and Annie are believable, even familiar characters from day-to-day life. As in his earlier books, including High Fidelity and Fever Pitch, it is the characters who keep the reader engrossed.
JULIET NAKED
Author: Nick Hornby
Publisher: Penguin
Pages: 416
Price: Rs 450