JULIET, NAKED: A Review

I've always had trouble reading Nick Hornby novels. They sound like great ideas, and they usually are turned into good movies, but when you get within the pages something always seems to be flat. I'm happy to report with Juliet, Naked Hornby is in perfect form. The description of the book sounds fascinating, and by page 90 I was wondering what the hell happened.

In a dreary seaside English town Annie lives with Duncan. For fifteen years they have been together, an almost platonic domestic relationship of equal convenience and comfort. Duncan is obsessed with a Springsteen/Dylanesque American singer-songwriter named Tucker Crowe who mysteriously dropped out of sight twenty years ago. Duncan is active in a small (very small) Internet community of Crowe fanatics who endlessly discuss Crowe's music and life and speculate about where he is and what he is doing. Duncan has spent most of his adult life dissecting every word and note and sound from Crowe's masterpiece, Juliet, an angst-filled passionate collection of songs. Halfway during the Juliet tour, Crowe canceled the rest of the tour dates and disappeared. And for twenty years, silence.

Then, suddenly, Crowe's record company releases Juliet, Naked - an acoustic, stripped down version of the classic LP. Annie writes a negative review of the Naked version and posts it on the Internet. Imagine her surprise when Tucker Crowe himself replies and they begin an Internet relationship - two lonely people looking for more than what they've got.

The book is a jumbled collection of scenes, with random characters popping up and the resolution is ... well, abrupt. Like this review.

BIBLIO SAYS: Wait for the movie.