Nick Hornby creates a couple worth cheering for
Has the world ever needed a Nick Hornby book more than it does today? The British novelist who gave us High Fidelity and About a Boy is back with Just Like You, an endearing love story that defies convention.
Set in London as Britons vote on whether or not to leave the European Union, the novel is a breezy read, grounded in just enough realism to make it all feel, well, real.
Lucy is the main character, a 41-year-old divorced schoolteacher with two young sons. We meet her in 2016 standing in line at the butcher shop, reluctantly gossiping with a girlfriend. “What are you looking for? In a man?” asks her friend Emma. “Hygiene,” is Lucy’s reply.
Fast forward about five minutes when Lucy first eyes a 22-year-old man named Joseph, as he deflects Emma’s flirtatious comments while ordering meat.
“I could eat him up,” Emma tells Lucy afterward.
“He didn’t look like he was interested in being eaten up,” replies Lucy.
“He doesn’t know how I’d cook him.”
“Lucy wasn’t sure this metaphor worked,” writes Hornby. “Knowing how you were going to be cooked hardly made the prospect of being devoured more enticing.”
And so it goes for pages and pages. Hornby’s knack for dialogue and the crackling wit he gives his characters makes the chapters fly.
It’s not giving much away to say that Lucy and Joseph commence a relationship. A relationship that shouldn’t work, but somehow mostly does.
It’s not all sunshine and rainbows, of course. Joseph is black and Lucy is white, and that creates a degree of racial tension. Lucy’s neighbour calls the police when he sees Joseph knocking on her door late one night and not getting an answer.
After the confrontation, Hornby writes some revealing dialogue, starting with Joseph’s voice:
“That wasn’t such a big deal.” “That’s terrible, then. Because it should be.”
“You don’t want the police turning up when there’s a guy skulking around outside your window at night? I would.” “You’re being flippant.” “Don’t tell me what to feel.” “I’m telling you not to write if off as nothing.”
He responds: “If I don’t write things like that off as nothing, I’d drive myself mad.”
The novel is full of exchanges like that about race and Brexit, as these seemingly incompatible lovers figure out that maybe, just maybe, there’s a place for their relationship in this world.