Nick Hornby, About a Boy

Now who is the boy here? Will Freeman is in his thirties, without financial worries because his father once wrote a successful Christmas song. So Will moves through life in the blissfull hope that he will never have to grow up. That hope is shattered by twelve-year-old Marcus, whom Will meets by joining a single-parent group, pretending to be a single parent himself (ultimate goal: meet single women, of course). Marcus is woefully uncool, the proverbial outsider, gets bullied at school and is desperate about his depressive mother, Fiona. After giving Marcus the odd can of Coke and cool sneakers, Will, despite himself, is drawn into all those messy aspects of life he has tried to avoid so far. An unlikely friendship is formed, which helps both characters to grow and mature in their own ways. Participants are requested to read parts of the text at home as preparation for the discussion in class. At the end of the course we shall watch the wonderful film version with Hugh Grant. Level C1.