Just Like You

June 15, 2020
Love in the time of Brexit: A 42-year-old white schoolteacher falls for the 22-year-old black kid behind the counter at the butcher shop. "It was a time when everyone was vowing never to forgive people. Politicians were never going to be forgiven for what they had done, friends and family were never going to be forgiven for the way they had voted, for what they had said, maybe even for what they thought. Most of the time, people were not being forgiven for being themselves....And could you only love someone who thought the same way as you, or were there other bridges to be built further up the river?" Hornby's latest focuses on an interracial, intergenerational relationship that begins a few months before the Brexit vote in 2016 and continues through the U.S.'s own bummer election, with a final chapter skipping ahead two years. Finally separated from the atrocious and not-quite-yet-recovered alcoholic she married, Lucy is ready to brave the dating pool and asks the young man who wraps up her roasts whether he knows anyone who might babysit. Her sons, devoted soccer players, are 10 and 8. Joseph is already babysitting for another family as well as coaching soccer, working at the public rec center, and DJ-ing to make ends meet--"a portfolio," as an acquaintance encouragingly describes it--while still living at home with his mum. He takes the job, and when Lucy's first couple of setups fizzle, the two give in to their urges. As smoothly as they fit together when it's just the two of them (they think they're hiding it from the boys), there's friction galore once they leave the house. The race thing, the age thing, and then there's Brexit. Everyone Lucy knows is voting "stay" while Joseph's dad, who works construction, is voting "leave." The guy who owns the butcher shop wants to put up whichever poster will be best for business, and most of Joseph's friends can't be bothered to care. The fans Hornby has won with his comely backlist--High Fidelity (1995), About A Boy (1998), How To Be Good (2001), etc.--might not change their favorite but they won't be disappointed. Hornby is as charming as ever in this nimble, optimistic take on the social novel.

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June 22, 2020
Hornby (State of the Union) lives up to his reputation as bard of the everyday in this thoughtful romance that crosses lines of race, age, and class. Lucy, a white, not-quite-divorced schoolteacher, first notices Joseph, a part-time butcher, soccer coach, and aspiring DJ who is black and 20 years her junior, while listening to her friend flirt with him across the counter at the butcher shop. Lucy hires Joseph to babysit her two precocious boys, who adore him, and soon Lucy and Joseph’s relationship becomes romantic. Each takes a turn trying to end the affair (“you and me are like something between brackets,” she tells him), but their connection persists as Lucy juggles parenting and teaching and Joseph determines to expand his DJ career. Hornby is good company on the page and offers insights on his characters with aplomb, demonstrating an investment in each of their voices and an interest in the forces that draw people to one another. This is great fun. Georgia Garrett, RCW Literary.

August 1, 2020
Are they flirting? Fortyish high-school teacher Lucy and Joseph, the 22-year-old who, among his many jobs, occasionally babysits her two sons, can't believe it at first. Adding to their age gap, Lucy is white and knows exactly how she'll vote in the upcoming Brexit referendum (stay), while Joseph, who is Black, isn't at all sure, though his father is all in for leaving. Operating under the obvious assumption that their fling is just that, Lucy and Joseph have a lot of fun doing nothing much (having sex and watching The Sopranos, usually in that order). Lucy's sons still think of Joseph solely as their babysitter, and they are obsessed with him. In Hornby's first full novel since Funny Girl (2015), assumptions?many of them?turn out to be wrong as Joseph and Lucy are tested by more than their differences and the historic vote. "I suppose that's what a relationship is supposed to be, Lucy says. "Finding out what it's like to be the other person." Effervescent with chemistry and quick dialogue, this is an utterly diverting romp.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)

Starred review from August 1, 2020

Lucy is a fortyish single white mother of preteen sons who teaches English in a racially mixed north London high school and whose ex-husband has ongoing dependency problems. In the weeks leading up to Brexit, two men enter her life. Michael Marwood is an age-appropriate midlist author whose background and interests closely align with Lucy's. Joseph is a young Black butcher shop employee whose many part-time jobs also include coaching soccer and mixing music at a trendy night spot. Not too surprisingly, Lucy has very little chemistry with Michael, but sparks fly with Joseph. What begins as a sizzling affair sustained by sex and The Sopranos evolves into a deeper relationship that soon falls under intense scrutiny by their families, Lucy's colleagues, and Joseph's hipster friends. All of the characters in this wonderful novel are endearing. Most of them, including Joseph's judgmental mother and Lucy's guileless, sports-crazy sons, are also smart and funny. A few minor characters are racist and provide some timely #BlackLivesMatter moments. VERDICT Filled with laugh-out-loud charm, Hornby's movie-ready follow-up to State of the Union is a hopeful balm for our unsettled postpandemic times. [See Prepub Alert, 3/11/20.]--Barbara Love, formerly with Kingston Frontenac P.L., Ont.

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