Nicholls’ sixth novel is lovely, compelling and probably his best yet
April 13, 2024 6:00 am(Updated 6:01 am)
David Nicholls has an extraordinary talent for making us care deeply about his characters. We were reminded of this in February when Netflix adapted his hit third novel One Day into a miniseries. At the time, my WhatsApp exchanges were such that my most frequently used and suggested emojis were: heartbreak emoji, crying emoji, different kind of crying emoji. I was also sent more than one selfie by a friend just after they had finished the show, eyes red and swollen from sobbing.
The last time I remember something prompting such a reaction was in 2009 when the novel itself came out; a time where you could look around any train carriage and there would be at least one person clutching their orange copy (and, depending on where they were in the book, possibly mopping away tears).
The thing is, this love story – and its infamous ending – wouldn’t prompt such a reaction if it weren’t for the fact that by the time you finish it, you feel as though its protagonists, Emma and Dexter, aren’t just characters at all: they are people you know and care about.
The same is true in You Are Here, Nicholls’ sixth book. Here, it’s for Marnie and Michael, our “lost souls” who find themselves walking the coast-to-coast path together; two relative strangers making this epic, 200-mile journey across the moors, mountains and fells of Cumbria and Yorkshire. After finishing the novel, I felt as though I had been on that journey with them, and in the days that followed I caught myself thinking about Marnie and Michael; wondering how they are and what they might be doing now.
Through chapters alternating between their perspectives, Nicholls takes equal care with both characters. First, we meet Marnie, a 38-year-old, divorced freelance copy editor holed up in a flat in London. The opening of the book is one of the most compelling and unhackneyed portraits of loneliness I’ve read in a while, told through simple but startling images, such as when Marnie notes how her birthday gatherings reduce further in scale with each milestone – like a “once popular band obliged to play ever smaller venues”.
Michael, meanwhile, is a York-based geography teacher who we first come across during a school trip in Wales as he is lecturing a group of bored students about glacial erosion. At 42, he is also separated, and piecing himself back together following an incident we don’t get a full picture of until towards the end of the book.
Their mutual friend, Cleo, is concerned for both. She accuses Marnie of being a hermit; raises questions about Michael’s increasingly long, solitary treks. So, she hatches a plan, inviting them to join a small cobbled-together group for a walking trip. Michael is tasked with planning the route, while Marnie takes much convincing and relents only after arming herself with enough fleece, nylon and technical gear needed “to feel, in short, that she was still indoors”.
It isn’t too much of a spoiler to say various obstacles and a turn in the weather later, each of the group have dropped off and the two of them are alone save for the flora, fauna and regular points of geographical interest which Michael, ever the teacher, likes to point out.
Much of the joy of reading Nicholls is his gentle comedy. In You Are Here, this mostly comes from Marnie’s side, particularly when she’s in the latest B&B on her laptop editing a manuscript for an amusingly erotic thriller (“she looked up a synonym for ‘girth’, sighed and closed the lid”).
He also continues to be a shrewd observer of modern life and love. For instance, how Michael’s main source of communication with his ex is “through the streaming accounts they still shared, a strangely intimate diary… written in code. Should he worry about the serial killer documentaries? If she was watching sitcoms, was she happy or sad?” (At least we know how she’d be feeling if it was One Day...)
The trouble with having a hit novel is that your work will forevermore be compared to it. But You Are Here is just as good (and possibly even better). To explain why, let me refer to a quote from One Day: “[L]ive passionately and fully and well. Experience new things. Love and be loved, if you ever get the chance.”
You Are Here makes you want to answer that call. It makes you want to get out and walk. It makes you want to seize the day; to do something significant with your life; to not only believe in second chances but go and make them happen. It makes you want to tell someone – anyone – that you love or care about them. I can’t think of a better testament to the power of a David Nicholls novel than that.
Published by Sceptre on 23 April, £20
