How To Be Good

By Nick Hornby

'Listen, I'm not a bad person. I'm a doctor. One of the reasons I wanted to become a doctor was because I thought it would be a good - as in Good rather than exciting or well-paid or glamorous - thing to do … Anyway, I'm a good person, a doctor, and I'm lying in a hotel bed with a man I don't really know very well called Stephen, and I've just asked my husband for a divorce.'

What does it mean to be good? This is Nick Hornsby trying to answer that question in his usual humorous way.

Katie and David Carr are married. Katie is Good. She recycles, she's against racism and even became a doctor to help people. However, Katie is having a mid-life crisis, not sure how she feels about her life and children. She feels is ready for a divorce and a new life. In fact, she is already having an affair with another man and ends up asking her husband for a divorce via cell-phone!

David is selfish, sarcastic and underemployed. He writes the "Angriest Man in Holloway" column for the local paper. Now, rather than acting in the expected manner when his wife asks for a divorce, he re-examines his own life and agrees with everything she says and becomes Good.

Enter Goodnews. A homeless person who seems to have powers of healing. He has a strange effect on David and David even lets him stay up in the spare room. Goodnews is making David look at the injustices in the world and try to put them right. Katie is trying hard to come to terms with this change. Having a hateful husband was horrible but is not sure whether it is much better having a super husband either.

Very funny, especially the old David, and well worth the time.