Going Full Circle with Nick Hornby

One of the most amazing things about books is that the perfect book always seems to find you when you really and truly need it.

That's how Nick Hornby's High Fidelity was for me.

My favorite book of all time, I first read High Fidelity when I was fresh out of high school. I was afraid that I was going to get swept away into the world and become nothing. Reading about Rob and his misadventures in romance made me feel like I could at least be better off than this bloke. The second time I read the book I was dealing with an intense fear of death, which Rob also deals with. But the third time I read it was possibly the most intense experience ever. I read this book directly after the worst break-up of my life.

High Fidelity is the story of Rob, a bachelor living in London. It starts as Laura, Rob's long-term live-in girlfriend, is leaving him. What follows is a play by play of a break up. There are the hang up phone calls, the discovery that your ex has taken a lover, and a series of confessions that makes the reader reconsider whose side he/she is on. The ending is perfect even if it seems unlikely from the dance that takes place throughout the whole book.

Why am I calling this going full circle?

A few months ago I came across Juliet, Naked, Hornby's latest novel. This is also about a break up between a long-term live-in couple. (Maybe you are guessing what kind of break-up I had now and you would be correct.) Duncan is obsessed with retired musician Tucker Crow. He is so obsessed that he takes his girlfriend, Annie, on a tour of Tucker related sites in the US. Once home, though, Annie finds herself fed up with where her life is and when a new album about to be released by Tucker shows up in the mail (a demo version of his famous Juliet album titled Juliet, Naked), Annie defiantly listens to it without telling Duncan first. Duncan becomes angry and bitter then finds himself in love with a new woman at work. Annie is left to herself in her house and through a series of events begins an e-mail relationship with the actual Tucker Crow who has been living a wasted life in Pensylvania.

There are some similarities in these books and a number of reviews I read accused Hornby of trying to hone in on the popularity of High Fidelity with the subject matter of Juliet, Naked. Maybe it is because I came through similar situations and was in a different place when I read the second, but I found these books to be just stories of failed relationships and people putting their lives together.

Both books will make you laugh out loud and will touch some nerve. I suggest both.