You Are Here (2024)

Why this one?

I can never resist a new Nicholls novel, so the chance to check this one out before its official release was a no-brainer. Thanks to Netgalley and Hodder for the ARC.

David Nicholls (1966-; active 1999- ) needs relatively little introduction. One of the UK’s most popular contemporary authors, he was born in Eastleigh, Hampshire and studied Drama and English at the University of Bristol. He then trained as an actor in New York and spent the first part of his career acting, mainly in stage productions. He then began writing for television, including several episodes of the popular ITV drama Cold Feet (which I was weirdly obsessed with for a while - if you like Nicholls, its original run shares a lot of the tone and humour of his writing IMO). His first novel, Starter for Ten, which centres on the British TV series University Challenge (another love of mine!) was released to wide acclaim in 2003, and later spawned a popular and entertaining film (2006) starring James McAvoy.

His third novel, 2009’s One Day, has been pretty much omnipresent in the UK since its release, selling by the bucketload, boosted by a (REALLY QUITE BAD) film starring Anne Hathaway (2011) and much more recently by a faithful and charming (and MUCH better) Netflix series (2024). 2014’s Us was another big success, marked Nicholls’ (to date) only appearance on the Booker longlist, and yet another adaptation for TV, this time starring Tom Hollander (2020). His most recent novel prior to this was 2019’s understated and to my mind underrated Sweet Sorrow. Over the years he’s written plenty more for screen, including a well-received adaptation of Far From the Madding Crowd (2015) and a really decent adaption of Edward St. Aubyn’s incredible Patrick Melrose books (2018).

(tl;dr: he’s a busy man, with a very decent strike rate.)

Thoughts, etc.

You Are Here begins by introducing us to Marnie, a 38-year-old copy-editor living in London, a natural introvert who has become more and more reclusive over time, exacerbated by the Covid-induced move to remote work and a breakup with her ill-matched husband. Her friend Cleo, a teacher, has been trying to get her to re-emerge into the world, and against expectations, it’s a big trip to the north of England that finally works. Cleo’s colleague and friend Michael, a 42-year-old Geography teacher and general loveable nerd (also recently separated), is planning to walk the Coast-to-Coast path - crossing England from the Irish Sea in Cumbria to the North Sea in North Yorkshire. Cleo arranges a group of fellow adventurers - including Marnie - to join him for the first part of the trip in the Lake District.

Joining them on the trip (after several dropouts) are Cleo’s son Anthony, and an F1-loving fitness obsessive called Conrad, who oddly seems to be the target of Cleo’s matchmaking for Marnie. While the trip begins well enough, typical Northern English weather soon intervenes and sees most of the crew giving up and either taking cabs back home or favouring their hotels over further rain-sodden trudges. Michael (obviously) and Marnie continue along their way though - Marnie initially mainly because she wants to get the value out of the expensive kit she bought for the trip and doesn’t want to lose the ability to use her fixed train booking. As time passes, despite her initial protestations, Marnie seems ever more drawn to the endeavour of walking, and - inevitably - to Michael.

In classic Nicholls style, this is a book about two seemingly mismatched people slowly realising they’re in love with each other. This is something the reader can see a long time before they can, but even when Marnie and Michael start to realise there’s something there, they aren’t quite able to make things run smoothly, and manage to self-sabotage by throwing obstacles in the way. It’s a formula that has worked very well previously, so there’s no real need to change it. It’s hard to find many other authors who can make age-old stories of love feel so fresh and engaging. There’s a depth to Nicholls’ explorations of romance that make it less about itself, and more about characters gainiing a deeper understanding of themselves through their romantic successes and failures. Time and again in his books, we meet characters who we will to understand where their best romantic interests lie, but they fail to see it until its either too late, or almost too late.

Again typically, it’s brilliantly structured and written to the point where it’s hard to put down. Here the Coast-to-Coast walk acts as a pleasing additional structural impetus to all of this. The ‘will they, won’t they’ of the relationship is mirrored in our desire to see Michael achieve his goal of reaching Robin Hood’s Bay, and the geographic and meteorological hurdles thrown in his way mirror those in the pair’s burgeoning relationship. And as usual, the emotional core is more than balanced out by charming mood-lightening humour throughout.

Its central characters are brilliantly drawn, three dimensional and relatable in so many ways, and they rightly dominate the novel. This does leave the stories of the other characters feeling like something of a sideshow: the introduction to Conrad is hilarious but his potential is rapidly exhausted and leaves you rather thankful that he ran off to London at the first opportunity; Cleo is literally nothing but a way of bringing the two main characters together, and her son Anthony is invisible for the most of the book, popping up occasionally to act as some sort of reminder of the fact that the key pair are getting on a bit and don’t yet have kids of their own.

These are minor criticisms though - it’s a joy to read, with central characters you love and care about, humour aplenty and some far from superficial observations about the nature of love, friendship, aging and life in general. The setting, and lovely little maps Nicholls uses to illustrate the book’s sections (rather cleverly too, towards the end) add to the book’s interest and readability. I’ve always fancied doing the Coast-to-Coast, only put off by the thought of the type of accommodation available en route - a concern this book very humorously does absolutely nothing to dispel! Despite that I can imagine that the cross-country paths of Northern England will be busier than ever this summer, packed with tourists looking to conjure some of the romantic magic that Nicholls has rather wonderfully captured here.

Score

8.5

Nicholls doing Nicholls things. It will be deservedly popular - immensely readable and a whole lot of fun, yet far from superficial.

Next up

Back into a few more from the Women’s Prize 2024 Longlist…