Fictional interview with Nick Hornby by Anna König, Q 11

 

Welcome to DIS, the Daily Interview Show! Nice to meet you, Nick!

I’m glad to be here, thanks for your invitation.

Let’s talk about your bestseller “About a boy”. Has this story been inspired by events that happened in your life or is everything just fictional?

Well, I’ve had some inspiration but it’s actually quite a sad story. Just look at my head – do you notice anything?

I don’t want to offend you, but I don’t.

Exactly. That’s the problem. I’ve been losing my hair since the age of ten because of a rare illness. Thus I had odd hairstyles to cover up my loss and my classmates couldn’t understand why a child their age often had an old-fashioned or awkward hairstyle. So they bullied me. I’d been searching for a way to handle my situation and finally I decided to write a book.

So, yeah, basically Marcus is kind of based on myself with all the bullying and him being different than the other kids – but of course he is not bald as you know if you have read my book.

All right, I’ve got it. I do feel sorry for you. That does sound dejecting! But hey, at least the result is an amazing book. Did you have a friend like Will who helped you?

Yeah, thank God, I had one. It was my cousin Steve, who is 13 years older than me. He helped me a lot during this time and constantly cared for me. You must know that he works as a stylist, so he always knew the current trends and helped me to appear less awkward.

Ah, now I can see the similarities to the novel although the story is still quite different. What about Marcus’s mother? Has she been inspired by your mother, too?

No, my mother is a joyful person who loves her life. All the other persons and storylines are fictional to make the book more attractive to the reader.

Nick, you have an amazing imagination and I think that I can speak for the majority of your readers if I say that you have perfectly managed to put parts of your own life into a book without people noticing. Unfortunately, our time is up already. I have enjoyed the conversation as well as your company and I wish you good luck for your future and your following books.

Thanks for having me.