Hornby Seeks YA Audience

Nick Hornby, the British novelist best known for High Fidelity and About a Boy, is temporarily shucking characters who refuse to grow up for characters who really aren't grown up. Hornby's first young adult novel, Slam, is about a teen who gets his girlfriend pregnant and talks his problems over with his poster of skateboard legend Tony Hawk.

Hornby makes the transition to the YA genre by featuring teens, fewer profanities, and a "Twilight Zone type idea" of the protagonist traveling to the future, writes the Washington Post's Bob Thompson. Hornby's publisher, however, says the book could just as easily have been marketed to adults, letting younger readers find it on their own. (More Nick Hornby stories.)