‘Juliet, Naked’ another success for Nick Hornby

Nick Hornby is one of England’s favorite authors. With such best-sellers as “About A Boy,” “High Fidelity” and “A Long Way Down” to his credit, he is known for focusing frequently on music as the theme to his books. His latest book, “Juliet, Naked,” is no exception.

The three main players in this fast-paced novel are Annie, a young woman closing in on 40 who gave up 15 (of her most fertile) years to Duncan, with whom she never was really all that in love; Duncan, a rather boring, nerdy professor who is obsessed with Tucker Crowe, an ’80s rock ’n’ roller who walked away from his career, and life, after releasing his most well-received album “Juliet”; and Tucker himself.

Duncan runs a “Tucker Crowe” fan site, and is delighted to find that he has been privileged to review an at-long-last album from Tucker, titled “Juliet, Naked,” a stripped down look at the previous album. Duncan is thrilled and writes a glowing review, but Annie is not so impressed, and slips in an honest, straight-forth review of her own, which touches off a storm of controversy among the “Crowe-ologists.”

Closing in on 60, Tucker has chosen to live his life as simply as he can, considering he has two, soon to be three, ex-wives too many, ex-girlfriends, and five kids, of which only one has known him as a real dad. And he doesn't know what to do with any of them. But he is floundering, searching for something in his life that gives it meaning.

Connecting through Duncan’s Tucker Crowe fan site, Tucker begins an e-mail relationship with Annie that naturally leads them to meet each other when he comes to England, and that’s where the lively interchanges take on a whole new side as the two find themselves attracted to each other.

“Juliet, Naked” is filled with humor, sadness, regrets, anger and bitterness, and love. Hornby once again leads his readers on a complicated journey with plenty of twists, turns and surprises that will leave them with a satisfied sense of reading bliss by the end. The book's written like a movie script, so don’t be surprised if you see “Juliet, Naked” in a theater near you in the future.