New Book Alert!

I had the chance to hear Nick Hornby speak tonight at Politics and Prose here in Washington, D.C. Hornby, author of modern classics about man-child music obsessive like High Fidelity and About a Boy, has a new novel out called Juliet, Naked that promises to revisit that territory while expanding his voice. Mr. Hornby read from two different sections of the book and I found myself disappointed when he stopped.

Apparently the novel is about a man who is (surprise) obsessed with a musician who had some sort of breakdown in the bathroom of a Minneapolis bar in 1986 and has since retired from music and seemingly vanished. The man traipses across America retracing the steps of his hero while driving his girlfriend a little mad with facts and figures about the mysterious musician. Eventually, his girlfriend sends an email to the recluse which has the effect of bringing him out of seclusion, at which point we get to see the inner mess of a life that the musician has made for himself.

I'm super excited to read this book, but started re-reading my newly signed (!) copy of High Fidelity, and now I have to finish that first.