Nick Hornby - About a Boy

AUTHOR: Nick Hornby

He was born in 1957 and worked as a teacher before

becoming a full-time writer.

Fever Pitch, his memoir of football fandom, and High

Fidelity, his first novel, have both enjoyed

outstanding critical and popular success. Nick Hornby

lives in north London.

TITLE: About a Boy

Characters:

Marcus is twelve years old, has red hair and is small. He

doesn´t like to go to school because he has no friends there.

His schoolmates ridicule him. His parents are seperated.

Fiona, Marcus´ mother, is thirty-eight-years-old. She treats

her son like a baby. She doesn´t allow him to listen to the

music he wants, she buys the clothes for him and he has to be

a vegetarian like her.

Will is a thirty-six-year-old man, who invents a son so that

he can go to meetins from SPAT (Single Parents-Alone

Together). He hasn´t got a job because his grandfather

composed a song, which brought a lot of money enough for the

whole family.

Suzie is Fiona´s best friend. She often go to meetings from

SPAT. There she and Marcus meet Will the first time.

SETTING: 1993 and 1994

London and Cambridge

Fiona, Marcus´mother, is trying to kill herself. Marcus and Suzie find her and take her to hospital. Marcus decides that his mother and Will, the man he meets at a SPAT-meeting, have to marry. He thinks if his mother try again to kill herself he´ll has somebody who takes care of him.

Marcus visits Will very often. They like each other. First Fiona doesn´t like Will but then she sees that her son likes him and so she accept Will. 

At school meets Marcus Ellie. She is always in troubles. A few days after Christmas Marcus´ dad has an accident. That´s the reason why Marcus should visit him. So he and Ellie go to Cambridge. On the way there Ellie gets out of the train. Marcus follows her. Ellie breaks a window and they are arrested. Their families and Will come to the police station. There they begin to fight. Then Marcus stays a day with his dad and his girlfriend. They stop fighting and Marcus goes home. Fiona and Will become friends. Marcus has got friends at school and Will fells in love with Rachel, a woman he meets at a New Year´s Eve party.

The book was not difficult to read and I liked the story.