About a boy

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’About a Boy’ is a sorrowful.
I don’t know who the title relate to; if it refers to twelve year old Marcus,
a lonely and strange boy who’ve just moved with his mother from Cambridge to London,
or if it relate to thirtysix year old Will, a man who’s never really been working,
a man who’s always trying to be cool, a man who is a unmarried man, a man who absolutely refuses to grow up?
Maybe, it relate to both of them?

Marcus and his mother Fiona moves to London after his parents’ separation.
He starts a new school, and from the very first day he knows it’s going to be a tuff time there.
The older kids in school start to bully him. They find Marcus odd, and ‘wrong’.
He wears the wrong clothes, the wrong shoes, his haircut is wrong and he listens to the wrong music.
But worst of all: sometimes he sings out loud without knowing it.
That makes him a perfect object for those boys.
The days in school is going to be really hard for him.
And, if this isn’t enough, his mother breaks up with her boyfriend,
and then she enters an huge depression.

Will lives on his own in an flat in London.
He has never had a real job in his whole life, because of ‘Santa’s Super Sleigh’,
a song his father once wrote. This song is on every Christmas album ever released,
and therefor he can live on the royalty money from this well-known song.
Since he has got so much spare time, he spends most of his time watching TV and such things.
But one day he starts to date a single mother, and that makes his life take a whole new turn.
The relationship with this woman fails, but know he realises that he has discovered a whole new sort of women.
Women who loves him for not being their ex-husbands. He doesn’t really have to do anything,
The only thing he has to do is to don’t be their old men, and then they’ll love him for that.
That’s how simple it is. When he has discovered this fact, he decides to join a single-parents-group,
which is called SPAT – Single Parents – Alone Together. He invites a two-year-old son, Ned,
and this gives him a lot of trouble later when they find out he’s been lying…

Well, anyway, trough this group he meets Suzie and her little daughter Megan.
Suzie is a friend of Fiona, Marcus´ mother,
and therefor Will and Suzie take Marcus with them to a SPAT-picnic one day.
Will finds Marcus strange and, just as the boys in school, he finds him all wrong.
His haircut, his shoes, etc. But he still tries to be friendly to Marcus, with not much response.

Marcus doesn’t like the fact being sent away to this picnic with Suzie and this weird guy Will.
But he tries not to show it to them.
Somehow Marcus happens to kill a duck, and that is the first sign of something being wrong this day.
Because of this ‘duck-accident’, this day will forever be known as the ‘Dead-Duck-Day’ to Marcus.
When he, Suzie, Will and Megan enter Marcus’ and Fiona’s flat,
they find Fiona laying on the caught with an empty gallipot on the table.
She’s been trying to commit suicide.
She doesn’t success, since she’s taken to the hospital and the doctors empty her stomach of its content.
The day after Marcus finds a letter on the table. A suicide letter from his mom.
It says that the reason she want’s to commit suicide is not that she is so unhappy she don’t wants to
live anymore. That’s not why. She feels more ‘like the party is over and I want to go home’.
She’s bored of life, that’s why.

As you may understand, Fiona’s suicide attempt makes some deep marks in Marcus.
He figures out that the more persons you are in a family, the less you will feel if someone disappears.
Therefor he starts to look for a new man to Fiona, and he decides that Will is the right person.
Because of this, he starts to visit Will every day after school, whether Will want’s it or not.
When he find’s out Will has been lying about his boy, it doesn’t matter that much. He still visits Will,
and this is the start of a sort of friendship between Marcus and Will.

Will finds Fiona interesting, but not in an I-want-to-date-her-way,
or in a I-want-to-sleep-with-her-way, but in a how-is-a-person-who-tries-to-commit-suicide-way.
She makes him curious.
Will doesn’t like the fact that Marcus visits him every day after school,
but after some time he realises he just have to accept it. If he doesn’t let Marcus in,
he could stand there for hours ringing the bell until Will finally would open the door and let him in.
Will feel kind of sorry for Marcus, who’s not having an easy time living his life.
His mother is a suicidal hippie, his father doesn’t care much about him, he’s being bullied in school,
and he hasn’t got any real friends. At least not until he meets Ellie, the most dangerous girl in the whole school.

‘About a Boy’ is a great book, a story with a heart and meaning.
I really enjoyed reading this novel, and I’m sure I’ll do it again, and I have seen the movie to it´s really good.
I’ve also read it in Swedish, but it’s even better in the original language, English.
It’s one of those books you don’t want to put away until you’ve finished reading it, and not even then…
It leaves you sad and happy and hopeful at the same time.
Many writer, must envy Hornby’s ability to ...