Product Description

From the beloved New York Times- bestselling author, a quintessential Nick Hornby tale of music, superfandom, and the truths and lies we tell ourselves about life and love.

Annie loves Duncan-or thinks she does. Duncan loves Annie, but then, all of a sudden, he doesn't. Duncan really loves Tucker Crowe, a reclusive Dylanish singer-songwriter who stopped making music ten years ago. Annie stops loving Duncan, and starts getting her own life.

In doing so, she initiates an e-mail correspondence with Tucker, and a connection is forged between two lonely people who are looking for more out of what they've got. Tucker's been languishing (and he's unnervingly aware of it), living in rural Pennsylvania with what he sees as his one hope for redemption amid a life of emotional and artistic ruin-his young son, Jackson. But then there's also the new material he's about to release to the world: an acoustic, stripped-down version of his greatest album, Juliet-entitled, Juliet, Naked.

What happens when a washed-up musician looks for another chance? And miles away, a restless, childless woman looks for a change? Juliet, Naked is a powerfully engrossing, humblingly humorous novel about music, love, loneliness, and the struggle to live up to one's promise.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #528 in Books
• Published on: 2009-09-29
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 416 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781594488870
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Hornby returns to his roots: music, manic fandom and messy romance in his funny and touching latest, dancing between three perspectives on fame: a sycophantic scholar, an appreciative audience member, a fabled singer-songwriter who can't see what all the fuss is about. After cult musician Tucker Crowe vanished from the public eye 20 years ago, his small but devoted fan base built up a mythology around his oeuvre and the people and places associated with his storied life. Self-appointed Crowologist Duncan has indoctrinated his girlfriend, Annie, on the wonders of Tucker, but when Annie fails to recognize the genius of a newly released version of Crowe's classic album Juliet, their 15-year relationship quickly crumbles. Meanwhile, Duncan's glowing first review is increasingly de-bated, while Annie's deconstructive essay posted on the same Web site earns her a clandestine e-mail correspondence with the reclusive musician. Soon, their exchanges grow more personal; given that Tucker lives in an American backwater and Annie resides in a remote English town, both view their e-mails as a safe flirtation until the dissolution of Tucker's latest marriage and a crisis with one of his several neglected children brings him to Annie's side of the Atlantic. Through brisk dialogue and quick scene changes, Hornby highlights each character's misconceptions about his or her own life, and though Duncan, Annie and Tucker are consistently ridiculous and often self-destructive, they are portrayed with an extraordinary degree of sympathy. Tucker's status of Dylan by way of Salinger allows for an intriguing critique of celebrity fetishization and of the motives behind the eccentricity that comes along with fame. Obviously, this is a must-read for Hornby's fans, but it also works as a surprisingly thoughtful complement to the piles of musician bios and memoirs. (Sept.)
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From The New Yorker
Hornby’s books are almost shamefully readable. They can suffer from simplistic premises and too many corny jokes, but his characters are always richly, sympathetically drawn. In this novel of aging, love, and regret, Annie lives in a decaying seaside town in England, where her partner of convenience, Duncan, immerses himself in the esoterica of an obscure American singer-songwriter, Tucker Crowe, who quit the business twenty years earlier and hasn’t been heard from since. When Tucker releases a demo version of his most famous album, “Juliet,” Duncan’s and Annie’s divergent reactions (he loves it, she hates it) pull them apart. Through a series of entertaining if implausible events, Annie and Tucker strike up a friendship. The story is tinged with despair, and though the ending offers little by way of hope, its bittersweet ambiguity lends it maturity.

From Bookmarks Magazine
Hornby is best known for his riffs on modern (male) love, music, and pop culture. While critics generally praised his newest novel, all agreed that Hornby replays his stock themes without stretching himself as an artist. (But despite his predictability, the Washington Post points out: "[W]ho's complaining? After all, we always expect Bruce Springsteen to sound like Bruce Springsteen.") What is new, however, is Hornby's focus on a woman's—Annie's—perspective on relationships and a foray into American culture. And the novel contains Hornby's beloved "sardonic humor and a pitch-perfect knowledge of pop culture and music and the ways they influence us" (Miami Herald), as well as marvelous characters and comic, charming moments—exactly why many readers will continue to love Hornby.

Customer Reviews

possibly my new favorite Hornby book
All you really need to know about Juliet, Naked, Nick Hornby's latest, is
that it doesn't disappoint. It's really, really good, and it may even
replace High Fidelity as my favorite.

The main characters are Annie and Duncan, a middle-aged couple, and Tucker
Crowe, an aging musician in retirement. Annie and Duncan have a
relationship-ending fight about the quality of Tucker Crowe's new album,
and Annie begins a correspondence with Tucker Crowe himself.

Juliet, Naked is about Regret. Big, mid-life crisis level Regret -- grief
and anger at the too-quick passage of time, of wasted opportunities. It's
about the realization that one has not Done Enough, or Done the Right
Things.

This may sound unappetizing. But one of the rare and great features of
Nick Hornby's writing is how he takes situations that would normally be
dreary, such as a serious break-up (High Fidelity) or teenage pregnancy
(Slam), makes these situations hilariously funny. His characters are
self-aware about themselves in some ways, but not at all in other ways.
These gaps in self-knowledge, and Hornby's gentle handling of them, are
exquisite in their subtlety and insight.

This book reminded me: (1) Do the work you love, and (2) Strive to spend
time with the people who (a) love you and (b) who you love in return.
Which of us doesn't need this reminder, always?

Starts great but I found that Tucker Crowe's character dragged the story down a little near the end
I haven't read anything by Nick Hornby before, although I have seen two films that were based on his novels (and both were quite good). I should qualify my review by saying that I was a little skeptical starting the novel, thinking it might be a little too `relationship drama' for my personal tastes. A romantic comedy may be a perfectly good option for a night at home watching a DVD with my lovely wife, but reading is a solitary experience, and generally speaking, I prefer darker nastier fare than what Juliet Naked promises its readers.

But I really enjoyed the first half of the novel. In particular I found Duncan (and Duncan seen through the eyes of Annie, his long suffering girlfriend) to be quite hilarious. Duncan is a fan of a relatively obscure singer/songwriter who disappeared abruptly in the mid-eighties shortly after the release of his most critically acclaimed album, Juliet. A mystic builds around the singer, Tucker Crowe, who has become a recluse in the spirit of JD Salinger. Duncan is the eminent Crowologist, an obsessive fan who maintains a web site devoted to Tucker lore, alleged sightings of the singer, and interpretations of his song lyrics. We meet Annie and Duncan while they are on vacation in the US, making pilgrimage to the bar bathroom where Tucker decided to walk away from his career.

But the novel started to lose me a little when Tucker Crowe enters the fray. After the demo tapes of Juliet are released, as a CD called Juliet Naked, Duncan writes a gushing review and posts it on his website, declaring it a masterwork. Annie posts a contrary review and soon after, she starts receiving (and then exchanging) emails from the reclusive singer. Annie and Tucker develop a romance of sorts but it never really generates much in the way of sparks, humor or warmth and compared to Annie and Duncan, Tucker isn't nearly as entertaining a character.

Neither Duncan nor Tucker change much as a result of anything that happens in the novel. They are both hopelessly incapable of creating any kind of meaningful relationship with women. In Tucker's case, he leaves a trail of abandoned children and former lovers in his wake. So this then, is really Annie's story. Annie comes to realize that she has fallen into a rut and gradually makes small changes to regain control of her life. This is a novel about regret and realizing that you have to make a conscious decision to get what you want out of life, otherwise it'll come and go before you know it. The ending is ambiguous and it isn't clear what the future holds for Annie, but the reader can see that she's on her way to changing the course of her life. I like that Hornby didn't give the novel an artificially happy ending or have Annie have a ridiculous and unrealistic 'epiphany moment'.

All in all I found this to a pretty entertaining novel. I'm something of a music buff and Hornby's insight into music, musicians, and the fans that obsess on them is priceless. The prose is filled with great lines, sharp dialogue and some genuine laugh-out-loud moments. Annie is a fully realized and engaging character and Duncan adds plenty of humor to the novel. In the end, my middling review is mostly a result of Tucker, who doesn't bring much to the table.

Bottom line: I found this to be a good light read - funny, insightful - but the final third lacked something, and in the end, it felt a little flat to me. I enjoyed it enough though that I plan to check out some of Hornby's more celebrated novels. 3 ½ stars.

Hornby's Back
Nick Hornby's newest novel, Juliet, Naked, is about has-been musician Tucker, Duncan, the man who's obsessed with him, and Annie, Duncan's long-term girlfriend, who finds herself in the middle.

Hornbyesque:
- As always, Hornby puts a great deal of care and effort into constructing realistic, dynamic characters. I recently saw him at a reading, and I could tell how much he thought about each of them, even the most minor, like Annie's friend Ros. He knows them, and has created them, as actual people.
- Also character related, is the fact that everyone can connect to someone in the novel. Perhaps you've been been a crazed fan, someone who failed to reach their potential, or stuck in a dead-end relationship. Above all, everyone knows what it feels like to have made mistakes and want to fix them before it's too late.
- The sly wit reminiscent of High Fidelity and How to Be Good is once again present (I felt it took a bit of a hiatus in the last novel, A Long Way Down). Smart, British, biting humor.
- Hornby writes with an intelligent simplicity- he respects his readers enough to realize that they don't need three pages describing the dreary sea or the seaside museum Annie works in. He realizes they have brains and allows them the freedom to create their own pictures.

But...
- I feel Juliet, Naked slightly misses the bar raised so very high by High Fidelity, About a Boy, and How to Be Good.
- I don't want to give anything away, but I had a few issues with the ending. I realize the point (so don't start lambasting me under the comments for "not getting it"), but I just didn't appreciate it.

Great read for those who love Hornby and those who are reading him for the first time. Also, if you ever get a chance to attend a reading I recommend you go.