Juliet, NakedA Novel

The wry bard of male pop culture obsession returns to music
For those High Fidelity fans who wondered when the creator of every vinyl nerd’s favorite fictional record store clerk would get back to writing about music: your wait is over. Juliet, Naked tells the story of three prototypical Hornby characters: Duncan, a record collector and internet fan site expert; Annie, a seaside museum curator and Duncan’s long-term girlfriend; and Tucker Crowe, an American rocker whose last recorded album Juliet (now 20 years old), has become a cult classic. Of course, Duncan is a Crowe expert — and a guy for whom the sound between the cuts on the vintage vinyl contains more meaning than Annie’s oft-expressed desire for a baby. Crowe, on the other hand, wants nothing to do with Duncan and his ilk; he disappeared for a reason back in the 80s, even if he can’t quite recall what that reason was anymore. And Annie? As the most emotionally sentient of the three, she’s Juliet’s hero, a woman who learns to ask for what she wants, even if by very British degrees.

As always, Hornby is hilarious, with a sharp eye for revealing detail. Tucker maintains a careful fiction about himself as a sort of aging rocker/Yeti, Annie spends a lot of time worrying about an exhibit whose centerpiece will be the decomposing eye of a forty-years-dead shark and Duncan is so pathetic it’s impossible not to send him some sympathetic love.

Hornby has a gift for describing the painful nexus of male obsession (in addition to records, he’s covered soccer, and do-gooderism) and female emotion. While his guy characters are usually more amusing — fictional arrested development is pretty funny — his women are power sources, always and forever. It’s an authorial strength that he could have easily left behind years ago, allowing his men to become more even more embittered and resistant to change. Thank goodness he chose a more nuanced and human path. Juliet, Naked comes to life when all three protagonists begin to interact with each other, first via modern technology, and then in still somewhat-vital flesh.