Annie and Duncan fit together naturally, like jigsaw pieces, though Duncan's passionate obsession with Tucker Crowe, the reclusive, tortured-genius songwriter, has never left much time for anything more meaningful, like marriage or kids.  In fact, Annie's starting to wonder whether she's wasted fifteen years on a bad relationship.

When Tucker's record company suddenly issue a stripped-down version of his most famous album, and Annie just can't see what's good about it, Duncan finds solace in bed with somebody else - and Annie is at last liberated to throw him out.

But worse is to follow for Duncan: Annie is not alone in her opinion.  After she posts a review on a fan website, she gets a response from a completely unlikely source, Tucker himself.  The correspondence which follows is doubly satisfying: it turns out that not only is Tucker an expert like her on years of wasted life, but she begins to realize what lies behind his long silence.

Nick Horby's compelling new novel, four years after A Long Way Down, is about the nature of creativity and obsession, and how two lonely people can gradually find each other.