In 1999 he published White City Blue , a poignant and funny novel about male friendship and growing up, as seen through the eyes of Frankie Blue, a yuppie estate agent in the 90's. With this novel he won the Whitbread First Novel Award. He has just finished his second novel, as yet untitled, which will be published next year, and is also working on a number of film and TV projects. A long time resident of Notting Hill, My Village met up with him to talk about his work. As well as looking at issues like friendship and personal history, White City Blues is also incredibly funny.
Life is both pathetic and incredibly funny.
That is what life looks like to me. I am incapable of writing any other way. In publishing funnily enough, people are quite uncomfortable about books that are both funny and sad. I think they don't know quite where to put them on the shelves. Even Nick Hornby is marketed primarily as a comic writer when he's really much more than that.