Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby

The idea behind Nick Hornby’s sixth novel, Juliet, Naked,  seems pretty enticing.  In a British seaside town named Gooleness, Annie and Duncan have been together for 15 dreadful years in a relationship that is lifeless and dull..due mostly to a third person.

Duncan is obsessed with an 80s singer-songwriter named Tucker Crowe.  Crowe had a “legendary break-up album” in 1986 called Juliet and then he disappeared.  Never made another recording.  Never appeared in public again.  And this only intensified the obsessiveness of his mostly male, fortysomething fan base.

Duncan runs a website for “Crowologists” and receives an advanced copy of Juliet, Naked – a CD of “solo acoustic demos of the Juliet album.  Duncan is in heaven.  He quickly pounds out an overly positive review on his website.  Meanwhile, Annie, sees Juliet, Naked for what it is.  “Juliet but without all the good bits.”

Annie gets frustrated by Duncan’s unquestioning worship – and she’s becoming increasingly aware that she has wasted the last 15 years of her life on this man – she decides to post her own negative review.  Annie’s post gets some good feedback, including a shocking email from Mr. Tucker Crowe.  The Tucker Crowe.

This novel really reads as if it’s made for the movies.  But only those who read it will get the full-story.  Hornby does a great job of describing the settling that people do with mates that aren’t a perfect fit.  He says it is “sheer stubbornness” that makes humans begin to “affix themselves to another” even when they don’t fit.

At the end of this novel, you think, “What will become of these people?”  Hornby doesn’t give their fates away.  For some, this might be a disappointment.  For others, it mirrors life.

Read this book now before it becomes a movie.

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd (December 26, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0141020644