Nick Hornby

Was born in Redhill on April 17th, 1957.

His parents divorced when he was 11 year old ( nearly the same age as Marcus ).
He was married, but is now divorced from his wife ( familie relationchips are themes of his
works ).
He set up Treehouse, a special school and charity for children with autism( education and
growing up is a big topic in his books )
He studied at Cambridge and later on worked as a teacher and journalist.
From his childhood he was a keen fan of Arsenal football team. ( It was the insperation of
his first book "Fever Pitch". )
Many of his novels have been adapted for the cinema ( "High Fidelity, "How to be good."
and "A bout a boy") .
At journalist, he wrote critic of Pop Music for "The New Yorker", ( the importance of music
is often reflected in his works )
In 1999 Nick Hornby was awarded the E.M. Forster Awards by the American Academy of
Arts and Letters.
He still Life in Highbury, North London, whrere "About a Boy" is set.
Summary
Twelve-year-old Marcus has moved to London from Cambridge with his depressive mother
Fiona. Marcus is being bullied and excluded at his new school, because he is "the oldest
twelfe-year-old in the world".
Meanwhile, 36-year-old “sub-zero” cool Will Freeman is living off the royalties of his
father’s famous Christmas song, “Santa’s Super Sleigh.” , which have made it possible for
him to remain single and jobless cool life.
Will decides he will date attractive single mothers and goes as far as inventing a two-year-
old fake son, Ned, and joins a group called SPAT (Single Parents Alone Together).
Will and Marcus meet at a SPAT picnic, where Will is trying to flirt with SPAT member
Suzie, who is looking after Marcus for the day.
Will and Marcus do not get on, but when Marcus accidentally kills a duck after throwing a
bread loaf at it, Will makes an excuse that saves Marcus from getting into trouble.
When they arrive at Marcus’s house, they discover Fiona has collapsed from a suicide
attempt.
Although Fiona survives, Marcus is frightened for her and decides she needs a boyfriend
and that Will is a suitable candidate, but soon realizes Marcus that nothing will happen
between the two adults, but he insists on visiting Will anyway.
The two hang out at Will’s flat, and when Will learns of the bullying at school, he buys
Marcus new sneakers so, to become more like act a normal teenager, later Marcus’s
sneakers are stolen by the bullies.
Fiona confronts Will, the latter feigns indifference and agrees that he will not allow Marcus
to visit him, however, Marcus insists on continuing to visit Will. Eventually, Will agrees to
allow Marcus to make an impact on his otherwise empty life.
At a New Year’s Eve party, when Will meets interesting, single mother Rachel and falls
instantly in love with her, he realizes Marcus is the only engaging aspect of his life.
However, Rachel mistakes Marcus for Will’s son. Will does not correct her and goes as far
as staging a charade where Marcus poses as his son.
Eventually, he is forced to tell Rachel the truth. She does not abandon him but is cautious
about moving too quickly in the relationship.
Meanwhile, Marcus is more confident at school and has begun hanging out with
misunderstood rebel, Ellie McRae, and listening to Nirvana.
Will talks with Fiona over her problems; however, their conversation is interrupted because
Marcus and Ellie must be collected from a police station after Ellie destroit a window
display, from a shop with a cardboard stand-up the recently passed away Curt Cubain.
At the end of the novel, Will , who is deepening his relationship with Rachel, has become a
responsible adult in a permanent relationship; whereas Marcus, who is speaking his mind
and life more like are normal teenager with friends and has become more of a carefree.

Minor characters
Fiona Brewer (Marcus’ mother)
Clive (Marcus’ father)
Lindsey (Clive’s girlfriend)
Lindsey’s mother (who gives Marcus £5)
Ellie (a naughty girl in Year 10 who befriends Marcus)
Zoe (Ellie’s friend)
Rachel (the woman with whom Will falls in love)
Ali (Rachel’s unpleasant son)
Suzie (a woman who goes out with Will for a while)
Angie (a woman to whom Will is attracted)
Mr Patel (the kind newsagent)
Lee Harper (the school bully)
Nicky and Mark (boys in Marcus’ class)
Mrs Morrison (Marcus’ head teacher)
Frances (the woman who runs SPAT, the single parents’ group)
Katrina (Ellie’s mother)
Ruth (the owner of the music shop which Ellie vandalises)

Secondary characters
Roger (Fiona’s most recent ex-boyfriend)
Andrew (another ex-boyfriend, disliked by Marcus)
John and Christine (a married couple who are friends of Will)
Barney and Imogen (their children)
Ms Maguire (Marcus’ English teacher who humiliates him)
Jeremy (the only single father in SPAT)
Sam Lovell (a boy at Marcus’ old school who recommended Planet Hollywood)
Robert (the man who throws the New Year’s Eve party where Will meets Rachel)
Tim Porter (the man who always ends up kissing Ellie’s mother on New Year’s Eve)

Main characters

Marcus Brewer is a twelve years old boy, and one of the two main characters.
When Marcus was eight years old, his parents Fiona and Clive got divorced. For a
 couple of years they both lived in Cambridge, but the summer when Marcus was
twelve years old, he and his mother moved to London. Marcus is not like an
ordinary 12 years old boy, he is the oldest 12 years old in the world. This is probably
because his mother is a depressive hippie, which he has to look after.
His mother Fiona makes him listen to Joni Mitchell and Mozart, she has also made
him become a vegetarian and she only buys him ugly and unmodern clothes. In fact
he has never even owned a pair of trainers.
Marcus is a short, slim, pale-faced boy with thin, straight light-brown hair. He is
insecure, ignorant and confused. He doesn’t talk a lot in school, probably because
he has no friends, and as fast as he opens his mouth someone is bullying him.
Sometimes he opens his mouth anyway, unintentionally singing on some song that
he’s thinking of.
All this makes Marcus considered weird, not only by the kids in school, but by the
teachers and by himself.
• Sensitive, Does not understand sarcasm, Terrified of being left alone, A child in a
man’s,
Not very self-aware, Loyal to his mother, Kindand Hero-worships Ellie.

Will Freeman, 36, is the other main character. He is a layabout and has never
worked his entire life. In 1958 his father wrote a song called “Santa’s Super Sleigh”,
which gives Will so much money that he doesn’t have to work. Instead of working
Will spends his whole days watching TV, shopping, getting his hair fixed, drinking or
driving around in his cool car, listening to Nirvana.
Will is a rather tall and good-looking man with short, curly dark-brown hair. He thinks
that he’s really cool. He has got a cool apartment with cool furniture, a cool CD-
collection, a cool car, a cool haircut and cool clothing.
At least, this is what he thinks. Actually Will is extremely shallow; he hasn’t much
interest in anything or anyone, and one of his main theories of life is to avoid all
problems by avoiding all people.
No attachments. No responsibilities. No headaches.
Will likes to compare himself with an island, who doesn’t need anybody to survive.
And fact is that he doesn’t have anybody around him to love either, he has got lots
of women, but he doesn’t love any of them. He has no family and no real friends.
• Selfish, Lonely, Immature, Afraid to commit, Devious, Good-hearted and Insecure

Fiona
Wills mother, is a 38 years old hippie. She is, just like Marcus, a very eccentric
person. She believes in things like vegetarianism and aroma-therapy.
Fiona is a short rather slim woman with short, straight, brown hair. She doesn’t care
about her looks, and wears old, very special clothes that would fit in better in the
60’s or 70’s than in the 90’s.
She is very depressed and cries a lot. One day she tries to commit suicide, but fails.
Ellie
McCrae is a 15 years old girl in Marcus’s school. She is famous in the school, as
she’s always in trouble for something. All the kids are scared of her.
Ellie has tousled black hair, wears black lipstick and listens to Nirvana. She also
claims that she is in love with Kurt Cobain.
Clive, Marcus’s father lives in Cambridge with his new girlfriend Lindsey. He is a
hippie just like Fiona, and uses to smoke weed. He doesn’t really care about
Marcus, but that’s not a problem for Marcus, as he doesn’t care about him either.
Themes

Suicide and Death

Suicide, or attempted suicide, is a mayor theme in the book, it brings Marcus and
Will togheter in the first place. Marcus visits Will often to avoid going home, to
perhaps finding his mother having tried to kill herself again. He want to help Marcus
and hi mother.
Kurt Cubains suicide brings Ellie to drink and destroy a shop window.
Depression often precedes suicid. (Nick Hornby, Ellie, Wills father, Kurt Cubain
Fiona)

Death also appears in other forms.

Marcus hit a duck with a bread and she die.

And Katrina says that Ellies behavour "Killing" her.

"Killing Me Softly!" is Fionas favorite songs.
The importance of music
As a music critik and author is his love of music to be found of a lot of novels
The music topic- Nirvana brings Ellie and marcus togheter
and Kurt Cobains death suicide which cause all the trouble on the to Cambridge
Fiona is music therapist
Will has a large collection of pop music, including Nirvana and his father write the
Christmas song, Santas Super Sleigh, and gets royalities from this song
Marcus listens to classical music and sings without realizing it. That makes it seem
strange to other children.

Point of view
Nick Hornby has chosen an omniscient narrator who tells the story from a third-
person poin os view. The narrator is not a character of the novel but he knows
everything about the protagonists ( thoughts, feelings and desires ).
However, he does not the behaviour, it is up to the reader to identify with any of the
characters.
Growing up and responsibilty
The novel explores the learning process that a child goes trough as he or she
growing up. Marcus finds life to deal with and struggles, as many others adolescent
teenagers do, with family and school problems and the way how to make friends
with hi peers.
Trough experiments, Marcus to realize he is not alone in the world and he become
more self-confident.
Nick Hornby demonstrates how even adults sometimes fail to have grown up, like
Will Freeman.
Will accepts responsibility and commitment only after a long learning process at age
 of thirty-six.
Language and style
Family sructure, the dysfunktional family, single parenting
Bullying
Friendship
Sex and love
Drugs
The relationship between men and women

Dead Duck day

Chapter 8-9
Location: Regent Park
Characters: Will, Suzie, Marcus and Megan
Summary: Will meets Suzie and Marcus at Regent's Park to the picnic. Will doesn't know
Marcus because Suzie hasn't told anything about him. Will thinks that Marcus is really
weird so he treats him not nicely. His behavior towards Marcus is quite unfriendly but
Marcus doesn't act better than Will. Later that day Will forgets Ned, his son, in
conversation with Suzie. Meanwhile Marcus wants to feed a duck, but the piece of bread is
too big so he kills the duck.

Location: Regent Park

Characters: Suzie, Will, Marcus and the Parkkeeper

Summary: Marcus is shocked about the dead duck. A parkkeeper appears to punish
Marcus for his "murderer" but Will defends him. After the parkkeeper goes away, they bring
Marcus home. When they arrive at the flat they find Fiona lying on the sofa, looking really
ill. She had attempted suicide so Will calls the ambulance. On the one hand Suzie is really
angry about Fiona because she has a child but on the other side she's also afraid of life-
threatening situation.

Police station
Chapter 33-34
Location: London / Police station
Characters: Fiona, Will, Katrina, Ellie, Marcus, Clive, Lindsey
Summary: Katrina, Ellie's mum, informs Fiona about everything so they call Will to drive
them to Royston. When they arrive, there are really bad vibes at the police station. The
owner of the record shop, Ruth, arrives and get on Ellie bad side because she thinks that
Ruth only wants to make money with Kurt Cobain, but then she realizes that they are huge
fans of him. Later they all can leave the police station and go to eat some burger. Marcus
has a discussion with his father because he wants him to come with him but he knows,
that Fiona want's him to stay at London.
Rome and Julia

Structure of the tragedy

Prologue: Chorus predict the ill-fated love of Romeo and julia.
Act 1: Exposition, i.e. Instruction to the place, time and main action of the play, the family
feud and love atfirst sight.
Act 2: The lovers passionate true love and secret marriage.
Act 3: Turning point: Mercutios and Tybalts death, Romeos banishment, climax to lovers
farewell after there wedding night, Juliet Isolation.
Act 4: The Friars rescue plan and Juliets apparent death.
Act 5: The failure of the Friars rescue plan, the lovers suicide, deoument, reconciliation
and peace.

Acts
Prologue (Chorus): The family feud of Montague and and Capulet in Verona and the
lovers ill-faited love.
1.
Escalus, the prince of Verona is angry of the streetfight of the feud families and declare a
death penality for future feuding of the two families.
Capulet wants to marry his daughter Julia gives a party for it. Romeo goes to the party with
his friends uninvited to see his unrequited dear Rosaline.The masked Romeo falls in love
with Juliet at first sight. When Juliet's father tries to attack Romeo, the two lovers find out
that they belong to hostile families.
2.
At risk Romeo climbs to the balcony where they confess their mutual love. The next day
Julia sends a messenger, her nurse; to send in the plan for your marriage. On the same
day, the secret wedding took place and let down the rope at night so that Romeo could
climb into Juliet's bedroom.
3.
In a fight between Romeo's friend Mercutio and Tybalt Capulet, Mercutio is killed,
whereupon Romeo kills Tybalt. The prince punishes Romeo with exile, whereupon he goes
to Juliet to comfort her, since they will never see each other again. Julia's father decides to
marry Julia to Paris (next Tuesday).
4.
Friar suggests Juliet to drink her potion that looks like she's dead to escape the wedding.
Julia doesn't trust her, nevertheless she does.
no longer resists the wedding, but drinks the potion.
Her wedding preparation becomes her funeral.
5.
Romeo hears of Juliet's death and travels back to Verona. The letter to inform Romeo that
Juliet is not dead has not been reached. He kills Paris in battle and takes poison to be with
Julia. Juliet wakes up and stabs herself to be with Romeo.

Romeo Montague is an 18 to 20 year old man from a good family. Little is written about
Romeo's appearance
If he loves, he loves totally and passionately.
He's also very self-pitying.
His language is poetic and dramatic, he uses standard language and many metaphors.
It is emotional and unrealistic. But Romeo is completely guided by his emotions.
Romeo is brave and ready to sacrifice everything for his love for Juliet. But this is also
reckless and very risk-taking.
Romeo puts his trust in other people.
When problems arise, the lover tends to find radical solutions.
His sense of justice made him avenge his friend Mercutio.
He sees himself as a victim, not as an agent.
He developed from an immature raptor for Rosalinden to a husband who followed his wife
uncompromisingly until death. He develops from the immature, enthusiastic teenager in
the course of the play to an adult man who is even able to show mature feelings like
remorse and compassion.

The nurse character type of a classic greek drama. A garrulous and bawdy servant. She is
a surrugate mother for Julia. She wants Julia to be happy. She serves as a messenger for
the two Libendans and has her confidence. Although we know about the secret love
between Romeo and Juliet, for the marriage to Paris, what is treachery and does not know
about Frea's plan.

Friar Lawrence is like a father figur for Romeo but he is a puzzling character.
Lawrence is the counterpart to the nurse. Behavior can be too wisely, compassionate, too
hasty, intriguing. He helps Romeo and Juliet with the marriage and thereby hopes for
peace between the two families. He risk poisinus Juliet and abandons her in the tomb at
the moment of greatest need.