Synopsis
Rob Fleming, the owner of a record store, and his employees live in a hilarious male world of movies, television, sports, and, most important of all, music. Forever making lists of their favorite pieces of pop-culture, they live in an abortive state of perpetual boyishness, refusing to face the grim realities of adulthood. But when Rob's girlfriend Laura leaves him, he starts to wonder if his priorities in life might need reexamining, and that happiness might not always come from a Lemonheads album. Filled with knowing and pitch-perfect riffs on masculinity, music, love, and culture, HIGH FIDELITY is a hip and witty snapshot of life at the end of the 20th century and just prior to middle-age.
| Details | | Publication Date: | 1996-08-01 |
| Size | | Height: | 8.3 in | | Width: | 5.3 in | | Thickness: | 0.8 in | | Weight: | 10.4 oz |
Publisher's Note
In "as funny, compulsive and contemporary a first novel as you could wish for" (GQ), a young pop music junkie finds that his myriad diversions after the breakup with his longtime girlfriend are not as entertaining as he thought they would be. "A total howl".--Mirabella.
Rob is a pop music junkie who runs his own semi-failing record store. His girlfriend, Laura, has just left him for the guy upstairs, and Rob is both miserable and relieved. After all, could he have spent his life with someone who has a bad record collection? Rob seeks refuge in the company of the offbeat clerks at his store, who endlessly review their top five films (Reservoir Dogs...); to five Elvis Costello songs ("Alison"...); top five episodes of Cheers (the one where Woody sang his stupid song to Kelly...). Rob tries dating a singer whose rendition of "Baby, I Love Your Way" makes him cry. But maybe it's just that he's always wanted to sleep with someone who has a record contract. Then he see Laura again. And Rob begins to think (awful as it sounds) that life as an episode of thirtysomething, with all the kids and marriages and barbecues and k.d. lang CDs that this implies, might not be so bad.
Industry Reviews
"Mr. Hornby captures the loneliness and childishness of adult life with such precision and with that you'll find yourself nodding and smiling....HIGH FIDELITY fills you with the same sensation you get from hearing a debut record album that has more charm and verve than anything you can recall."
Jollly
"More than depicting pop music fandom, HIGH FIDELITY is about love, and about the ways in which music (and film, books, and art) affect our experiences of real-life love....This self-consciousness grants HIGH FIDELITY a certain profundity, and heightens its readers' pleasure....[A] supremely satisfying read....Hornby portrays relationships with honesty and without sentimentality....Although [it] is a trip through territory that in real life is mundane, depressing, and trite--modern love and popular music--the novel is anything but."
Gould
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