The Boy Done Good

I'VE MET a lot of interesting and unusual people in my time, but somebody who's earned #1.8 million without any apparent effort? That's a first.
"I hadn't realised this before," reveals a lean and disgustingly healthy-looking Nick Hornby, "but all the major film companies have moles in publishing houses who get paid to feed them copies of books before they make it to print. I hadn't even finished About A Boy when Robert De Niro's mob in New York offered me #1.8 million for the rights which was way, way beyond my expectations.
"My first thought was, that's my four-year-old son Danny, who's autistic, looked after for the rest of his life. If I'd been given that sort of money when I was 20, well, there's a possibility I'd have gambled it away or developed a spectacular coke habit, but now I'm too dull and boring to blow it!"
Grateful that his literary endeavours have secured his son's future, Hornby says "you have to accept the negative stuff that happens from time to time as part of the deal. Like everything else, fame and money have a price."
Magnanimous words from somebody whose estranged wife was doorstepped recently by a Daily Mail journalist.
"The angle they were going for was, 'Millionaire writer dumps wife and handicapped kid and goes off with a pile of film money.' I wasn't so much angry as shocked by the grubbiness of the thought process. Authors have escaped pretty lightly in the past because we're 'too middle-class' for The Sun and the Mirror, but now that the Mail are desperately trying to boost their circulation, we're included in the category of people who are 'fair game'.
"I find it hard getting my head round the fact that I'm newsworthy in that sort of way," he continues. "Reading about myself is coronary-inducing enough but when my family get dragged into it . . . well, you just have to protect them the best you can."
Nick Hornby may be the man who's credited - or should that be charged? - with giving birth to the Loaded New Lad generation, but during our one-hour chat, he doesn't fart, say "fuck" or go on about the enormity of Melinda Messenger's tits once.
"That's probably why Will Self called me a wimp on the Omnibus programme they did about me the other night. Actually, I was glad when he popped up because prior to that it had all been far too complimentary.
"What do I think of Will?" he continues choosing his insult carefully. "He's not afraid to make a prat of himself, that's for sure. Nah, I just think he's an idiot for dismissing me and a whole genre of writing, really, because it doesn't subscribe to his particular set of values. It's like you slagging off dance music because it doesn't have as many guitars and drums in it as rock. The whole point is that they're supposed to be different.
"Will obviously thinks that to be a good author you've got to be off your trolley all the time, but I don't agree with him."
While clearly miffed at having his characters described as "wimpish nonentities moaning about their neuroses", Hornby delivers this rebuff with all the genuine venom of a teacher ticking off an errant child. Which, given that teaching's his former profession and that Self still shows no signs of fully navigating puberty, is entirely appropriate.
AMATEUR PSYCHOLOGY
The problematic aspect of your first two books, Fever Pitch and High Fidelity, each selling in excess of 700,000 copies, is that unless your third does likewise it's going to be deemed a failure. "Publishers obviously judge things in terms of units sold," Hornby reflects, "but I wouldn't be any less proud of About A Boy if it completely bombed."
The smart money says that that ain't going to happen. A touching - if rather slender - coming of age tale, the tome is currently number two in the UK Hardback Fiction Chart and likely to go one better when it emerges before Christmas in paperback. True, nobody gets to snort heroin on John Major's plane, but suicidal hippy mum Fiona, her bright but nerdy 12-year-old Marcus, and Will, the world's unlikeliest surrogate dad, are all people you wouldn't studiously avoid at a party.
"Without being a trilogy, I think my books reflect the way I've systematically tried to walk without crutches," Hornby proffers. "Fever Pitch is about a passion which started in childhood. High Fidelity stems from that teenage thing of becoming obsessed with music. And the new one focuses on relationships and how us adults are pretty crap at them. Not only is it a natural extension, but it's what I most enjoyed writing about in the last two."
It's become something of a literary cliché, but Hornby's storylines are so "that's me" true-to-life they've got to be more autobiographical than he's letting on.
"Fever Pitch, obviously, was autobiographical and had bits in it that my wife would have preferred me to leave out. She'd have no problems with High Fidelity or About A Boy, though, because while there are certain layers of exposure, the characters tend to be composites rather than individual people.
"There's some stuff I'm not brave enough to write about and other things I want to protect as part of my private life."
Indulging in a spot of amateur psychology for a moment, it strikes me that a fair bit of Nick Hornby's teaching career was spent revisiting and, perhaps, coming to terms with his own childhood.
"Undoubtedly," he agrees. "I had to keep it in check or otherwise I'd have lost all control in the classroom, but I really admired some of the more rebellious kids."
Did that admiration ever develop into something more libidinous?
"You wouldn't be human - aged 23 and just out of teacher training college, like I was - if you didn't look at the odd sixth form girl and think, 'she's a bit of all right!' What would've been wrong is acting on that totally natural impulse.
"Actually, there was a big to-do once when a mother saw me walk out of a theatre and disappear off with her daughter. I had to explain to the deputy headmaster how she'd left early to go to her Saturday job, while I'd seriously over-indulged the night before and was rushing home to stick my head down the toilet. It got me off the hook with the mother, but the school thought I was an alcoholic."
About A Boy's pivotal passage comes when, returning home from an afternoon out with Will, Marcus finds his mum lying on the floor after taking an overdose. Included in the narrative is the would-be suicide note, a deeply moving piece of prose which suggests that Hornby must have previously read or written the real thing.
"(Long pause) I've fantasised about death and mentally composed one in my head but, fortunately, that's as far as it ever went. It was very important to me that I got it right because if it hadn't rung true, the rest of the story would've suffered. Her and Marcus' characters were fully formed in my mind before I started the book so I didn't have to work too hard to find her voice in the letter.
"As for what is and isn't autobiographical," he continues, "I was too much into popular culture when I was 12 to be Marcus. Being into music and football at that age more or less guarantees your survival. I mightn't have been the coolest kid in school but I was an Arsenal fan which gave me some sort of standing. Will, on the other hand, is this bloke who spends his days killing time and enjoying every moment of it, which is like me when I'm not writing."
sad gits
He may be a multi-millionaire, but Hornby insists that his life now is pretty much the same as it was in his pre-loadsamoney days.
"To suggest that having money changes every molecule of your being is nonsense," he insists. "Most of my friends are at an age where they've got reasonably good jobs and can afford life's essentials - eating out, going down the pub and an Arsenal season-ticket - so there's no problem with us doing stuff together. I live in the same neighbourhood and go into the same shops that I have done for 10, 12 years. I still take the bus and the tube so it's not like I'm locked away anywhere."
It must be tempting, though, to forsake his normal Chicken Tikka Masala with the lads and head off to whatever swanky nightspot Tony Adams ... Co are currently using for their post-match relaxation.
"I thought Tony Adams was supposed to have given that sort of thing up," Hornby laughs.
Oh yeah, I forgot. Ray Parlour, then.
"If I genuinely got on with him then, yeah, it'd be great to hang out with Ray Parlour but I don't want to be one of those sad gits with money who tries to buy their way into their company. I'd rather we maintained our present me in the stand/them on the pitch relationship.
"There are a couple of people I've got to know at the club, like Liam Brady who's a really nice, sharp, intelligent man. I know what I'm doing with him. I understand the relationship - whereas if I bumped into Marc Overmars I'd have no idea what to say apart from 'great goal at Old Trafford' or 'how are you going to celebrate winning the double?'"
He could always try, "Hey, Marc, fancy a part in my new movie?"
"They've made me 'Executive Producer' which basically means I get my name on the credits but, when they're paying you #1.8 million for the privilege, you don't really care what liberties they take. The film version of About A Boy's going to be set in New York which, done properly, could work. Robert De Niro's not in it - and for all I know hasn't even read the book - but I'm banking on the fact that everything he's involved in is successful."
Call me Peter Tatchell if you will, but I'd be guilty of gross dereliction of journalistic duty if I didn't take this opportunity to "out" Nick Hornby. The truth of the matter is that for most of his adult life, Ray Parlour's would-be drinking buddy has been living a lie. Does the name "Simon" ring any bells?
"Oh no," Hornby says, the colour suddenly draining out of his cheeks. "You've been talking to Liam Mackey, haven't you? Yeah . . . I'm a Simon ... Garfunkel fan. He caught me red-handed a couple of months coming out of the Virgin Megastore in Oxford Street with a copy of their box-set. He promised he wouldn't tell . . ."
Daily Mail, eat your heart out!
* About A Boy is published by Victor Gollancz at #15.99 Stg.