SLAM - Nick Hornby

Sam is a regular teenager, with a talent for Skateboarding. And SLAM is his story, told by him. And if you think about it, the story is perhaps not that monumental in itself. He gets a girlfriend. Gets her pregnant, ‘accidentally’. And his girlfriend, Alicia, decides to keep the baby. Disturbing? A little, perhaps. Disrupting for Sam? Definitely. But is it really that extraordinary? Maybe not. Maybe not even if you consider Sam’s weird time travel. I say weird time-travel, because this is not comic-book stuff save-the-world-time-travel. It’s just Sam going into the future through some unexplained force, seeing what it’s going to be like, and then returning back to present. And all this is completely out of his control, and happens pretty much on a whim. Yes, this angle does introduce a bit of scope for drama, but Nick Hornby uses it more as a story telling mechanism than for dramatic effect.

Yet, SLAM is one of the most outstanding fictional stories I have read. It is easy to stereotype teenagers and write about them. But Nick Hornby manages to go much deeper… deep into the skin and soul of Sam as he narrates his story in the book in first person. There’s no single thing which is very moving or life-changing. But the narrative takes you with the flow and you truly enjoy the ride. Sam’s interactions with his mother, his girlfriend, his girlfriend’s parents and his friends are well described. It’s hard for a writer to keep the atmosphere real. Inadvertently he will slip into poetic imagery or needless suspense or irritating cockiness. Keeping it real adds a lot of charm to a story. That’s perhaps why I love Dick Francis books so much. And that is why I am increasingly liking Nick Hornby’s books as well.

But then, while Dick Francis’ books will have a proper conclusion of whatever mystery or adventure the protagonist is involved in, Nick Hornby’s books since they are mostly about normal people like you and me (no horse racing world shattering scams here) the ending, in the vein of being real, could be a little boring. But then, SLAM was never about the ending or a edge-of-the-seat climax. It was about a young boy’s journey. And it makes for a very engaging read. It’s just hard to explain the quality of the narrative, or the dryness of the humour which makes you latch on to the book. Highly recommended, is all I can say.