Tall Stories - Fine Books For Discerning People

Nick Hornby’s Slam, Easily Excellent.
Nick Hornby is a remarkable writer, not because he writes well (he does), but because he is easy to read. It is one of the most difficult illusions for an author to master: making the reader believe that writing is easy. In this Nick Hornby is simply inspired. The eye flies over the page, the pages turn quickly and the voices of the characters chatter away in your head like an overheard conversation in a quiet room.
His latest offering, Slam, is ostensibly written for young adult readers in the same way that Fever Pitch was written for football supporters, (more particularly the misguided few Arsenal supporters still wandering around, dazed and confused), and will therefore find a large audience of readers who are not. As we have come to expect of him the book is warm, witty, wise and (of course) easy to read.

Since publishing Fever Pitch in 1992 he has authored five novels, High Fidelity, About a Boy, How to be Good, A Long Way Down and Slam. In addition he has also written three other books of non-fiction, has edited four anthologies of short stories and written two screenplay adaptations.
Most well-known as a humorous writer, he never fails to surprise with the depth, complexity and humanity of his stories and characters. The obsessive way the record collector goes about compiling the perfect mix tape, the moral quandary of the adulterous woman trying to be good, the adult learning how not to be a boy, and the boy learning to cope with slamming into reality – all are nuanced characters whose experiences make us examine our own, help us understand how things are, how the world works.

Somewhat ironically Slam, though for and about teenagers, shows a new maturity in his writing. Perhaps it comes with the passing years, perhaps just with life knocking the stuffing out of him. It would seem obvious to conclude that he gathers experience as he goes and that his works change as his world view does. And his world view changes because of the experiences he gains. Slam serves as a good example of this.

In short it is about a young boy, Sam, who continues the family tradition, started by his mother, of accidentally becoming a parent at sixteen. His guide through this experience is the autobiography of Tony Hawks (Occupation Skateboarder), who has advice for almost all situations except his mother also becoming pregnant and giving birth to his son’s aunt, mere months after said son is born.

In this world families are dysfunctional, but in a way that makes them understandable, attractive even. It is as if he has written a book he wants his own children to read, so that they would be warned that life could turn and bite you as soon as look at you.

Not only does the book read well, but life, seen through the eyes of a teenager, one who has had to learn to cope with adult issues long before he is ready for them, is a fresh experience. Sam tries his best to understand, and to cope. He is not a bad kid, indeed, he is a good one.

“I think I can remember Ms. Miller telling us in religious studies once that some people believe you have to live your life over and over again, like a level on a computer game, until you get it right. Well, whatever religion that is, I think I might believe in it. I might actually be a Hindu or a Buddhist or something, without really knowing it.” (p.277)

Inlearning, he becomes wise beyond his years.

“Age isn’t like a fixed thing… You can be seventeen and fifteen and nine and a hundred all on the same day. Having sex with the mother of my son after a long time without any made me feel about twenty-five, I’d say. And then I went from twenty-five to nine in two seconds, a new world record. I didn’t have a clue why I felt nine years old when I’d been caught in bed with a girl. Sex is supposed to make you feel older, not younger. Unless you’re old, I suppose. Then it might work the other way around.” (p.283)

As Sam learns, we learn, together we come to understand that life is challenging, strange, surprising, mutable and not at all what we expect.