Nick Hornby's books have found millions of readers around the globe since publication of Fever Pitch in 1992. Accessible, relevant and deeply passionate, his work embodies the 'good books for all' spirit of the original Penguins and in doing so gives a literary voice to the needs, concerns and preoccupations of everyday life. Otherwise Pandemonium features two Hornby stories, one of which was written specifically for this volume.
My knees started to shake. I couldn't stand up, and I could hardly breathe. I hadn't seen the film then, so I still had the luxury of imagining that my son didn't really do very much, apart from stand behind topless women, covering their nipples with his hands. I think there might even have been a brief moment when I told myself Mark was just being a gentleman - that there was this poor girl, caught with no blouse, thankful that Mark was there to hide her shame . You know what it's like when you've got kids. You'll only believe the worst of them when you've got no other choice.
I found it impossible to get my head around. Mark! I thought. My Mark! Mark, who used to sit at the kitchen table trying to do his English homework, and finding it so difficult that he chewed his way right through his biro, night after night! At first, I didn't know why that particular memory made the video seem so hard to believe. There must have been millions of people who took their clothes off for a living, and every single one of them probably found their English homework a bit of a struggle. Or is that just me being prejudiced? Could you come top in English and then go on to star in a film called 'Meet the Fuckers'? It's hard to imagine, isn't it?
But then I worked out why the biro-chewing didn't seem to fit with the career in porn. Mark is . Well, he's never been the star of anything. He's been trying to get a leisure and tourism qualification so as he can get a job in a sports centre somewhere, but he's finding the studying hard. We're worried it might be too much for him, that he's set his sights too high. Anyway, when I saw him on the cover of that video, I realised that we'd got used to the idea of thinking of him as, I don't know. Not special. I mean, he's special because he's our son. But it seemed to me that the two words I'd said to him most over the last few years were 'Never mind'. School reports, exam results, job applications, football trials, girlfriends: 'Never mind', 'Never mind', 'Never mind'. I haven't really seen any porn films - only what was on the TV when we were on holiday in Spain, when we found that German cable channel. But if someone had told me that Mark had appeared in one and asked me to guess what sort of part he played, I'd have said he was the husband who discovered his wife in bed with the window-cleaner or something like that. I'd never have guessed that he'd be on the cover. Sad, isn't it, the way you sort of give up on your kids?
If you like this book, you may also like these:
Short Short Stories - Dave Eggers
Martha and Hanwell - Zadie Smith
9th and 13th - Jonathan Coe