Nick Hornby, author of About a Boy and High Fidelity among other bestsellers, recently published Dickens and Prince, a nonfiction book about these two beloved artists and their surprising commonalities. It’s hard to imagine two more seemingly different figures — Charles Dickens lived in Victorian England and wrote novels about orphans and workhouses, while Prince rocked America with his songs about love and sex in the 1980s and ‘90s — but leave it to Hornby to discover that their careers, lives, and legacies were actually quite similar. Hornby dives into their rocky childhoods and the early hunger both expressed for their craft, he highlights the astonishing rate at which both produced work (Dickens would work on multiple books at once, just like Prince worked on three albums simultaneously), and he explores how both were celebrated, misunderstood, and exploited throughout their too-short careers. With his trademark informality and humor, Hornby doesn’t keep his subjects at a distance; instead, he jumps in the narrative with them, describing how the artists affected, and still affect, his own work. Dickens and Prince is funny and inspiring, a deep-dive into two geniuses that contemplates what it takes to make great art.
This short, concentrated book (it’s around 150 pages but reads very quickly) was the perfect nonfiction snack I was looking for between novels. Not only did I learn some interesting history, but it got me thinking in new ways about work and success. Hornby doesn’t try to force connections where they don’t exist, but he does make a convincing argument that Dickens and Prince both possessed an almost unnatural amount of talent and drive that led to (and perhaps grew from) many similar experiences. Jumping off of old standbys like Malcolm Gladwell’s “10,000 hours” rule, Hornby offers a more holistic perspective that these artists were a product of “every tiny step of their lives, every single parental decision, school lesson, friend, uncle, magazine, day out, crush, conversation, [and] shopkeeper.” He digs past the baseball stats and considers the why behind their bottomless appetite for work. And although Hornby writes in a fun, unbothered style, you can tell that loads of research, along with the personal investment of a lifelong fan, went into this book. Highly recommend.
I’d recommend this book to…
- Anyone who loves looking at historical greats in new, refreshing ways… it’s similar in style to How Proust Can Change Your Life by Alain de Botton
- Anyone looking for a funny, upbeat, but also wisely instructive book… it’s similar in tone to A Swim in the Pond in the Rain by George Saunders
- Anyone interested in the making of a genius… it’s similar in theme to Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, Just Kids by Patti Smith, and Charles Dickens: A Life by Claire Tomalin
