Nick Hornby returns after 6 years with a new novel about love, race and Brexit
Nick Hornby is a twotime Oscar nominee in the best adapted screenplay category for “An Education” and “Brooklyn,” and he’s an Emmy winner for “State of the Union.” This flourishing TV and film career has slowed his book output from the days when Hornby wrote six novels in 14 years, including “High Fidelity,”
“About A Boy” and “Juliet Naked.” Now Hornby is back with “Just Like You” ( Riverhead Books), his first novel since 2014’ s “Funny Girl” hit the bestseller lists.
“Just Like You” focuses on the relationship between Lucy, a recently single mother of two sons, and Joseph, who sells her meat at the local butcher, next becomes her babysitter and then her lover. It explores the way age, class, education and race can keep people apart — or be obstacles that can be overcome. And, as with all of Hornby’s novels, it is filled with pop culture references and very funny.
Q. - sts ts just your second novey tn 11 yelrs. Wsen you’re wrtttng ’ or ’ tym or - V do you get elger to get blcv to noveys?
The last couple of years I’m usually quite backed up with doing something else and you can find yourself not having room for a novel because those other projects are really cool. But I’m sufficiently Eeyore- ish and negative that I’d rather always be doing the thing I’m not doing now.
Q. “Just ctve You” expyores bots tse ’ rlugst endtngs lnd begtnntngs o’ reylttonsstps lnd Qrextt, wstcs ts tse slme tstng wrtt ylrge. Wstcs clme ’ trst?
I started thinking about Lucy and Joseph as a couple a few years ago — specifically about the things that prevent us from dating someone who is not like us. I kept coming back to them but I was not too sure what to do.
Author Nick Hornby. Parisa Taghizadeh, Penguin Random House
Then two years after the referendum, it seemed to be the right time to talk about division and both sides’ inability to hear. I wanted to try and write something observational about that without taking sides too much.
Q. You spectlytze tn observlttons lbout tse every dly, tse sumor lnd sumlntty tn tse smlyy tstngs tslt go wrong tn our ytves. Wls tt l cslyyenge to sclye tslt up to wrtte lbout Qrextt, lyong wtts rlce lnd cylss?
I was still writing about the tiny moments that could go wrong, but this time the embarrassing moments are about politics and race. I tried to pack as much in as I possibly can, without writing about everything that’s going on in the world.
Q. You’ve wrttten
’ rom l womln’s perspecttve be’ore but never ’ rom l Qylcv mln’s. Ttd tlvtng bots royes on wtts lyy tsose tssues ’ eey ytve l potenttly mtne’ teyd, espectlyyy tn tsts dly lnd lge?
Part of the problem is stupidity — when I’m writing, I think, “It’s just me and the screen; it seems OK to me.” Then you finish and think, “Oh, it’s going to come out now.” But I have to write about the people I live amongst, and I don’t live in an all- white neighborhood so I can’t keep writing books that don’t have Black characters in them. I’d rather get it wrong that way then get it wrong the other way, where everybody has the same background.
Since I started this book, the world has become more sensitive but I’m not writing first person and I’m not trying to claim any experience as my own. I know that at its heart it’s a book that means well, so you just have to hope for the best.
Q. You slve sucs l dtsttncttve votce. Were tsere wrtters wso tn’yuenced you?
I’ve always relied a lot on influence, but by the time something comes out it’s in my own voice. Anne Tyler was a huge influence on my career but when I met her she was genuinely mystified about what she had to do with “High Fidelity.”
But I am such a fan of hers that my email address was the name of an Anne Tyler character; once I was going to interview her by email and got this rather startled response saying, “I never expected to get an email from him.”
Charles Dickens is another influence — his minor characters are a lesson to everyone — the concision and that sheer mayhem he can cause in three pages with a minor character, I love that.
Q. Spelvtng o’ mtnor cslrlcters, cucy’s young sons, Tyyln lnd Ay, brtng l wonder’uy ( but relytsttc) joyt o’ energy lnd sumor every ttme tsey lppelr. To you get tempted to veep lddtng more?
I have a sense of what a natural length is. With a screenplay, you could write the funniest scene ever written, and if it’s 4 pages, they’ll tell you to lose three and a half. The joy of writing a novel is that you can at least let it run its natural course.
Q. THErE’s A lot oF Humor tHrouGHout your Books. Is tHAt somEtHinG you look to injECt or somEtimEs HAvE to Cut BACk on?
That’s complete, natural self- expression. If you live with me, it’s kind of a pain in the ass because I’m always thinking, “What’s the gag here? What would be a really inappropriate thing to say right now?”