Nick Hornby is one of those writers whose name has transmogrified into an adjective. "It's all a bit Nick Hornby" is used to dismiss writing that is self-obsessed or concentrated on the foibles of masculine behaviour.
Time hasn't really been kind to the "I'm mad, me" element of this account of a fan's life, but that's often the fate for those that come first in a genre.
It's such a shame that he has to carry the can for lesser writers, because this is a beautifully written book that shines some interesting light on growing up. Hornby's analysis of the role of football in his growth to independence is particularly acute and moving. When his family broke up he discovered that going to the match with his buttoned-up weekend dad provided "a context in which we could be together" in a way that going to the zoo or hotel meals consumed in silence could never do. "It changed our lives just when they needed changing most," he explains.
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