For as long as there have been books about relationships written by men, there has been the character of the man-child. He doesn’t want to have a loving, supportive relationship with an equal partner. He wants someone to take care of him: to pick up and clean his dirty socks, to make sure there are always clean dishes in the cabinet, to lovingly chide him instead of expecting him to actually do anything. And it’s not just in books! It’s in movies, TV shows, and (for some) right in their very own homes!
Nick Hornby’s writing has always faced criticism for its proliferation of man-children, but his novel Slam features one where this tendency is excusable. Our protagonist, Sam, is an actual teenage boy. He’s mostly a pretty normal English kid, but with a particular interest in skateboarding and a near-consuming obsession with Tony Hawk. He often talks to his wall poster of Tony, imaging Tony responding with lines from his autobiography, which Sam has memorized. He’s close to his mother, who had him as a teenager and who primarily raises him after her divorce from his father. All his life he’s been conscious of what teen pregnancy can mean, the consequences it can have for the relationship between the parents and their life trajectories.
Of course, then, it should come as no surprise that when he starts seeing Alicia, the daughter of one of his mother’s friends, they start sleeping together…and that an issue with birth control means that she finds herself in the family way. As the two teens try to figure out what to do next, and what this means for their already-shaky relationship, Sam struggles with his own powerlessness in the situation, and how he’s going to tell his mother. At a few particularly low moments, his search for guidance from Tony Hawk, with the help of a little magical realism, gives him preview glimpses at what life might be like with a baby. Sam works to get himself together, but the future is more complex than even his flash-forwards can show him.
I’ve read several Hornby books at this point, and they all have a familiar feel: emotionally immature people who behave in self-defeating ways but are rendered with warmth, drama that is primarily confined to the domestic sphere, and witty, well-executed dialogue. Slam does all of these things, but none of it felt like it was done with particular inspiration. None of the characters, or the interactions between them, are all that interesting. The magical realism feels very out of place in the book, and I’m not sure it was necessary for the story: Sam could have come to terms with his impending fatherhood in an organic way. The way it’s executed was honestly confusing and almost silly, a major false step.
At the end of the day, though, Hornby is too talented to write something egregiously bad. While this book is often flat, it’s short and nimble enough to avoid dragging, at least. This seems to be variably classed as either Hornby’s usually contemporary fiction, or as young adult…but besides its adolescent characters, it doesn’t “feel” like YA. It just feels like a not-very-good book with teenagers in it. Unless you’re a Hornby completist, this is very missable.
