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Overview
Now a major motion picture from Universal Pictures.
Will Freeman may have discovered the key to dating success: If the simple fact that they were single mothers meant that gorgeous women—women who would not ordinarily look twice at Will—might not only be willing, but enthusiastic about dating him, then he was really onto something. Single mothers—bright, attractive, available women—thousands of them, were all over London. He just had to find them.
SPAT: Single Parents—Alone Together. It was a brilliant plan. And Will wasn't going to let the fact that he didn't have a child himself hold him back. A fictional two-year-old named Ned wouldn't be the first thing he'd invented. And it seems to go quite well at first, until he meets an actual twelve-year-old named Marcus, who is more than Will bargained for...
Winner of the 1999 E.M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Synopsis
Will is thirty-six and doesn't really want children. Why does it bother people that he lives so happily alone in a fashionable, Lego-free flat, with massive speakers and a mammoth record collection, hardwood floors, and an expensive cream-colored rug that no kid has ever thrown up on? Then Will meets Angie. He's never been out with anyone who was a mom. And it has to be said that Angie's long blond hair and big blue eyes are not irrelevant to Will's reassessment of his attitude toward children. Then it dawns on Will that maybe Angie goes out with him because of the children. That maybe children democratize beautiful, single women. That single mothers -- bright, attractive, available women - were all over London ... Marcus is twelve and he knows he's weird. It was all his mother's fault, Marcus figured. She was the one who made him listen to Joni Mitchell instead of Nirvana, and read books instead of play on his Gameboy. Then Marcus meets Will. Will belongs to his mother's SPAT group (Single Parents, Alone Together), and Will is cool. Marcus needs someone who knows what kind of sneakers he should wear, and who Kurt Cobain is. And Marcus's mother needs a husband. They could all move in together! Marcus and his mother, Will and his son, Ned. Then Marcus follows Will home to his flat, where there are no toys or diapers, no second bedroom, even -- and certainly no Ned. This was valuable stuff. If Marcus went home and told his mother about this right away, that would be the end of it. But something tells Marcus that he should hang on to this information until he knows what it's worth.
Hal Espen
Hornby...combines a skilled, intuitive appreciation for the rigors of comic structure with highly original insights about the way the enchantments of popular culture insinuate themselves into middle-class notions of romance. —The New York Times Book Review
Editorials
From Barnes & Noble
The Barnes & Noble ReviewAmong the chroniclers of contemporary British life, Nick Hornby is one of the select few whose books have found a welcome on both sides of the Atlantic. Hornby's previous novel, the hugely popular High Fidelity, was essentially a belated coming-of-age tale, centered on the hilarious misadventures of a music-obsessed Londoner in his mid-30s; About a Boy expands upon this proven formula to portray the dual coming-of-age rituals of a precocious adolescent and a terminally hip slacker on the verge of middle age.
Hornby's protaganist is Will Lightman, a perennial guest at life's eternal cocktail party. Due to a happy accident of birth, Will has never had to work; but, as his friends have drifted away into meaningful marriages and careers, he finds himself, at 36, mostly alone, desperately hip, and leading the quintessential unexamined life. Then, a chance affair opens his eyes to a unique opportunity for endless low-emotional-risk liaisons: lonely divorced mothers! Ever resourceful, Will passes himself off as a single father, signs up for the next meeting of Single Parents-Alone Together, then blithely sets out to hold auditions for his next conquest. But things don't turn out exactly as planned. Through a complicated chain of events, Will finds himself the de facto guardian of a peculiar 12-year-old trouble magnet named Marcus, who soon susses out the truth behind Will's rather dodgy secret but cultivates Will for reasons of his own.
How these two emotionally stunted misfits learn to build a meaningful relationship makes for an intensely affecting and genuinely comic story. Like its predecessor, this irrepressible joy of a novel synthesizes dead-on cultural references and keen observation of the human condition. Nick Hornby's prose may have an English accent, but his theme is universal. Greg Marrs
Michiko Kakutani
Boy [is] a lot of fun to read....[I]f we can see the novel's conclusion coming far off down the pike, Mr. Hornby's sharp observations and his quirky comedic instincts insure that our journey there is entertaining, funny -- and occasionally affecting.— The New York Times
People Magazine
An amusing male-bonding theme...stylish, well-observed.Boston Globe
Hilariously loopy.Hal Espen
Hornby...combines a skilled, intuitive appreciation for the rigors of comic structure with highly original insights about the way the enchantments of popular culture insinuate themselves into middle-class notions of romance. —The New York Times Book ReviewNew Yorker
Hornby has established himself...as the maestro of the male confessional.GQ
Clever and winning.The New Yorker
Hornby has established himself...as the maestro of the male confessional.The Boston Globe
Hilariously loopy.Hal Espen
Hornby...combines a skilled, intuitive appreciation for the rigors of comic structure with highly original insights about the way the enchantments of popular culture insinuate themselves into middle-class notions of romance.— The New York Times Book Review