More than half the novel

While reading “Slam” I wondered why Nick Hornby wrote a book about the topic of teenage pregnancies. Has he got any personal link to it? Maybe it’s just the fact he’s living in England - the country with the highest quota of teenage pregnancies. I know about this because there were a few documentaries in TV about this topic. Result of them was that the sexual elucidation was too inadequate.

The only thing which was new to me were the NCT classes for young parents that are on one hand a really good thing to support the teenagers in an anyway difficult time. But on the other hand you maybe further with a safeguard support the carelessness of other teenagers.
In the novel there are many good, smart and funny dialogues and comments but the only things I felt a bit annoyed of were the unstable decisiveness of Sam (He escapes to Hastings (p. 125) then he decides to go back home (p. 144) and then he wants again to go to Hastings (p. 160) & If he wants Roof or not) and that sometimes it appears as if Nick Hornby just wants to advertise Tony Hawk’s Biography.
Finally I thought about the most important situations and the atmosphere meanwhile. Here’s the result =):

The “Slam“-Soundtrack:

1. The Soundtrack for Sam’s life: Creep by Radiohead





2. The Soundtrack for Alicia’s life: Me and Mr. Jones by Amy Winehouse





3. The first date: Hyperspace by Nada Surf





4. The relationship between Sam and Alicia’s parents: The art of losing by American Hi-Fi





5. Tony Hawk conversations: Anthem by Blink 182





6. The big love and first sex: My Girl by The Temptations





7. The half happened and Sam’s worries after: Full Moon by The Black Ghosts





8. 1st future jump: Hide and Seek by Imogen Heap





9. The escape to Hastings: Bom Bom Bom by Living Things





10. Decision to go home: I’m Falling Away by Human





11. 2nd future jump: Red Light by The Strokes





12. The arguing of Sam’s parents while the session with Consuela (Sam's feelings): Murdercity by Green Day





13. Sam and Alicia informing Alicia’s parents about the pregnancy: Superfly by Bender





14. Sam and Alicia seeing Baby 1st time on the screen: God Only Knows by Beach Boys





15. Birth of Roof: Hallelujah by Rufus Wainwright





16. While the NCT class: Fat Lip by Sum 41





17. Alicia’s feelings after Sam’s fight with her ex and his impeachment he isn’t Roofs dad: Cheating by Jettingham





18. Alicia becomes a nightmare for Sam in the 1st future jump: Dumpweed by Blink 182





19. Sam and Alicia split up with each other: Dry Your Eyes by The Streets





20. 3rd future jump and main title: Heaven Is A Half Pipe by OPM

Summary so far

Here's a short summary of the events until the 16th chapter:

In the novel “Slam” written by the British author Nick Hornby, the 15-year old main character Sam tells out of the future about his life: the life of becoming a young father.

Sam is a normal teenager, skater and lives with his mother in London. The circumstances in his family are pretty involved: After the divorce of his parents Sam gets weak and feels misunderstood. Neither his mother Annie, that doesn’t cope with the life after her young pregnancy, nor his father Dave, the immature, patriotic grouch, embody persons Sam could talk to. Instead of this a poster of world famous skater Tony Hawk, Sam’s idol, has to suffer for Sam’s problems and questions.
One day Annie wants Sam to go with her to a birthday party of a friend of hers. There Sam gets to know Alicia, the daughter of the hosts. Alicia and Sam soon fall in love with each other. But one time they sleep with each other, Sam makes a mistake by not using a condom. From now on Sam is afraid of the possible consequences of his action, until, on his 16th birthday, Alicia lets him know that she’s late with her period. Sam’s nightmare gets reality. He wants his old life back and doesn’t want the future to arrive.
He leaves Alicia in the abandon with the whole situation and runs away to Hastings.
One more reason for Sam’s escape is that Sam suddenly awakes in the future. He thinks that this should be a lesson taught by Tony Hawk because of Sam’s turning his back on him before.
This future is really oppressive for Sam: His mother is pregnant, Alicia is ugly and he doesn’t know how to handle the baby called “Roof”. In this future jump Sam meets his friend Rubbish, who tells him that after the birth of Roof, Sam has disappeared out of normal life.
Now Sam knows that he definitely doesn’t want living such a life.
In Hastings everything goes wrong and he notices that a baby couldn’t be that terrible. So, Sam decides to go back home.
Meanwhile his mother has called the police and Sam notices happily that everybody has worried about him.
Nevertheless nothing has changed: Alicia calls on him and the both are informing Alicia’s parents about her pregnancy. Her parents are really stunned and they’re saying that it’s all Sam’s fault, because of the history of his family (his mother’s young pregnancy). Finally everyone summons up and decides to support the young parents.
Sam tells about the gladness after the first scan of the baby, the problems in the NCT classes, where no one is the same age as Alicia and Sam, Mark, Annie’s new boyfriend, moves in and Sam gets a better relationship with Alicia’s parents.
When the moment comes Sam has already experienced because of the future jump, everything is not that bad as it has seemed before: Alicia is no more ugly but “tired”, his mom is happy and also everything else is just “appropriated” to the situation.
But Sam gets ones more whizzed into future: There’s Emily, Sam’s little sister, he’s no longer together with Alicia, he hadn’t given up skating and he loves Roof and occupies himself with him.
In reality again, because of Annie’s pregnancy, Sam and his mother get more like “friends”. Then the day of Roof’s birth comes: Alicia’s mom Andrea tries to be nice and calms down everybody. Sam is really confused in his feelings and doesn’t know if he wants Roof or not. But when the baby finally arrives even Sam is really happy.
The day after, Sam moves to Alicia but doesn’t feel comfortable living with persons he doesn’t even really love.
However the relationship between Sam and Alicia gets better but when the ex of Alicia, Jason catches Sam by saying that he is Roof’s father, Sam is for one moment something like relived not being a father…

The characters & places in "Slam"

The characters in the novel "Slam":

Sam Jones

Short description:
15 year old, unwanted baby (p. 20), thinks he’s stupid (p.115, 147)… but cool (p.25), school is important to him (p.15) & he has got a “goal” (p. 21) for his future, first he’s not interested in a girlfriend (p. 22), lives in a new-house flat in London with his mother (p. 20), skating is the most important thing in his life (joined a few competitions (p. 93)), no family guy (p. 21), doesn’t care what people are saying about him (p. 34, 9), would never join the army - hates to be tortured (p. 57), never gets into fights (p. 285), rational & decent (p. 45), lonely (has no one to speak with), really good boy (p. 55), likes drawing, hates time (p.317)


Relationship to…:
…Alicia:
(meeting p. 23), first thought she’s the biggest jerk in Britain (p. 21) and thought about out sulking her, made fun of her, then: flipped over when she started laughing (p. 22), but in course of the novel there are ups and downs, splitting ups and he gets scared of her (p. 325)
…Tony Hawk:
represents the only contact for Sam and portrays Sam’s idol, but then: Sam gets scared of the future jumps aroused by TH and in the end there’s no clarification of their relationship.


How the situation bears on Sam:
Because of the unexpected pregnancy of Alicia, Sam becomes more mature in course of the whole story. (see page 161) First he’s a normal teenager with normal teenage problems. The only hold for him is skating. But than he discovers that in life there are more important things and that everyone has to accept responsibility for his interactions and that there’s no running away.

Alicia Burns

Short description:
16 years old when she and Sam meet each other but seems older than him, doesn’t go to the same school as Sam, has grey eyes, straw-colored hair which looks messy and cool at the same time, tall (but not taller than Sam), not skinny and flat-chested, has “a skin like a peach” (all p.22), lives in an old house (untidy and dusty) with lots of books (p.20), “cruel but clever” (keeps Sam on tenterhooks) (p.26), hates the parties of her parents, rebel (p.42), doesn’t want to go to college (p.42) in contrast to Sam, wants to become a model (p. 43), bad at changing dirty nappies (p. 282)


Relationship to…:
…Sam:
she sets him unintended under pressure in coherence with the first time sex, was left in the lurch with the pregnancy by Sam, she wants the partner hood to work but in the end she understands that it hasn’t been the right time for Sam and her (p. 205).
…her parents:
no good relationship, her parents want her to be something she doesn’t want to be.


How the situation bears on Alicia:
At first she was afraid of all (pregnancy, birth and briefing her parents) and she looked at once older and paler (p.176). But in course of her pregnancy she got really interested in everything having something to do with babies and being a parent (p.199). Her GCSF results were terrible (p. 250) and moreover she was really scarred the time before the birth (p.258). When the baby was there, she looked tired (p. 283), peaky (p. 116), her face was puffy and she gained weight (p. 101). But after the situation settling down, in the end she looked great and healthy, had a new boyfriend and did a part-time fashion course at university.

Annie Jones

Short description:
looks young (32 years old but guessed by 23/24), was 16 when Sam was born, against being pregnant that early (p. 19), regrets it (maybe in general having a child with Dave) (p.28), has a book group (p. 20), works in Leisure and Culture and on council (knows Alicia’s mom (councilor) from there), earns not that much money (p. 126), no good connection between her and Sam (they are living alongside each other) (p. 61), gets scared of Alicia (p. 65), 2nd time pregnant with Emily (p. 227), gets a friendship with Sam (p. 248)

Dave Jones

Short description:
“bad-tempered bastard” (p. 169), against women (p. 96), gave up smoking (p. 276), no family guy, egoist, went away to Barnet (p. 96), lives there with Carol (p. 170), no “racist” but “patriot” (p.167), hates going abroad (p. 167), favorite expression:

“If you are in a hole, stop digging.” (p. 247)

Always thinks the worst of everyone (p. 169), you can’t talk to him (p. 169), sees through Sam (p. 168) what infers from Sam having a few equal characteristics with his father.

Rufus (Roof) Jones

born on September the twelfth, blond, curly hair, named after Rufus Wainwright (a song of him played while Roofs birth)

Alicia’s family

At first “dead cool” and really friendly (p. 73) but just thinking Sam is stupid. Reality: Snobs (p. 78) with heavy marked class consciousness. They want her daughter to go to college. When they notice that Sam made their daughter, “the genius” (p. 74), pregnant, they blame Sam for Alicia’s life getting downhill. All in all Sam is part of the family (p. 74).

Andrea Burns

Short description:

50 year old councilor, teaches drama at college (p. 73), pretends to have perfect family life but for real she’s frustrated with her marriage and everything else (p. 330), maybe she’s even jealous of Annie Jones life, wants to be loyal to Sam (“Not everybody is academic.” (p. 74))

Robert Burns

Short description:
Also about 50 years old, listens to hip-hop (feels still young and frank), wears a stud, teaches literature at college (p. 73), much more relaxed than his wife Andrea

Rich Burns

Short description:
Alicia’s brother, plays the violin, no nerd, wears glasses (quite cool glasses), likes a laugh, likes Sam, has not that much to do with the family, studies at college

The friends of Sam’s mom

In general quite rich and posh (p. 20) like Alicia’s parents (p. 42).

Paula

Just mentioned once on page 9.

Steve

Short description:
Annie’s boyfriend the time between Dave and Mark, “useless”, not liked by Sam, he and Annie split up with each other

Carol

Short description:
Dave’s new girlfriend in Barnet, infertile (p. 153), is on good terms with Annie

Mark

Short description:
Annie’s new boyfriend, works in Health and Social Care (p. 62), has a strange way of humor (p. 81), is the opposite of Dave (except their appearance): more intellectual, likes Europe (p. 244)

Tom

Short description:
son of Mark, 8 years old, lives with his mom (p. 81)

Rabbit

Short description:
friend of Sam, good skater, pot-head (p. 108), pretty stupid (his name is another word for “to babble”…), explains Sam that when the baby was born Sam “disappeared” and states this way that Sam’s life has ended, helpful and vulnerable (p. 155)

Rubbish

Short description:
isn’t a good skater, called “the brain” - pretty smart

Giles

Short description:
quite posh and older than Sam (p. 119), knows Sam from the NCT class, has also a pregnant girlfriend (nervous and neurotic), at first: all exited and happy - after birth of his son Joshua: his girlfriend gets the postpartum depression (cries all the time and won’t let Giles touch her, declines her baby) (p. 120)

Terry

NCT class leader (p. 203)

Ryan Briggs

Short description:
visits the same school as Sam, horrible, violent, ugly, impolite, the person Sam hates the most but he envies him for that he doesn’t cares about everything so that life is much easier (p. 55)

Robbie Brandy

Short description:
visits also the same school as Sam, is a show-off (boasts with bought condoms) (p. 45)

Niki Niedzwiki

Short description:
girl that Sam dated after splitting up with Alicia, went out with older boys and also looked much older than Sam, spends lots of her money on clothes, never seen without make-up, wants a baby for the reason that she likes babies, doesn’t want go studying at college and doesn’t want to be fifty when her child is sixteen (otherwise the relation between her and her child is more like a friendship than like a strict parent-child relationship) (p. 84/85)

Jason Gerson

Short description:
Alicia’s ex-boyfriend, wanted her to have sex with him, because she didn’t want to they split up, later he wants to make Sam uncertain about his fatherhood (see fight p. 287)

Carl

Short description:
Alicia’s latest boyfriend, also skater, about Alicia’s age, seems “okay” in Sam’s eyes, has long, dark, side-parted hair and a goatee (p. 339) - looks he might plays in a band

Alex

Short description:
Sam‘s latest girlfriend, met her on his course at college, pretty, friendly, funny and „gorgeous“ (p. 341/342)

The places in the novel "Slam":

Islingston - That's where Sam lives with his mom. Islingston is a London borough in Inner London. (for more information visit this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Borough_of_Islington)
Barnet - The place where Sam's dad has moved when he and Sam's mom split up (p. 96)

On this map extract you can also see where other places mentioned in the novel (Hackney, Highsbury New Park, etc.) are situated:

Größere Kartenansicht

Clissold Park - (p. 95) Park where Sam's dad went in after Sam's birth.

Hastings - (p.125) Place where Sam escaped to.

Finsbury Park - (p.325) Park where Sam has been played as he was a child and where he took Roof to.

The Skater - To be or not to be?

Sam is an out and out skater. Before the whole baby-thing, skating is his life and even while Alicia’s pregnancy he goes skating if everything is outgrowing him. But what are the “distinctive features” of a REAL skater? Here are the results of my internet research:

The Skater - his appearance:

Skate punk (sometimes called skate core or skate rock) is really popular among skateboarders. In actual fact, skate punk is a musical style, a subgenre of punk rock and fuses the intensity of hardcore punk and thrash with more melodic songwriting. Skate punk started in mid 1980's California, where skateboarding became really popular and was considered a form of rebellion. Bands such as RKL, NOFX, Stalag 13, and Suicidal Tendencies were among the first wave of skate punk bands, whose members were and are often skateboarders themselves.

Now we know what music a skateboarder listens to - ROCK! =) According to that, many skateboarders refer to this music, what involves the fact that they also dress like „skate punks“.

Yes, I know that many fancy skaters this way:

But there are also lots of  “normal” skateboarders who just wear their Charhartt cap, Ethnies clothes, Billabong bag and Converse shoes...

So, this is the skateboarder the way I know him:

 

The Culture&History - from where it all came from:

At first skateboarding tied to the culture of surfing. Everybody who saw the film “Lords of Dogtown” knows the commencements. The persons who didn't, here's the trailer:

Skateboarders were always judged as parts of the dirty, rebellious, non-conforming youth and it was and still is in common that the appearance of crime and drugs were and still are in some parts of America higher in the areas of skate parks. For this reason certain cities still oppose the building of skate parks in their neighborhood.

The fact with the crime and the drugs is true but like in almost everything, you can’t lump them all together. I think in Europe skateboarding has an other meaning as in America, maybe here it is more like a sport than a attitude towards life.

Also films like “Grind” and “Gleaming the Cube” have helped people to show that their prejudices against the “stereotypical” skateboarder are not always right and that group spirit is supposed to heavily influence the members of the skateboarder community.

"In presentations of this sort, showcasing of criminal tendencies is absent, and no attempt is made to tie extreme sports to any kind of illegal activity." (sourced form wikipedia.org)

Even the video games which were made popular by Tony Hawk and in return which let Tony Hawk‘s name become known also by persons who haven‘t anything to do with skateboarding, this video games made skateboarding culture become mainstream - in a positive AND negative way. Maybe because of Tony Hawks try to stay popular, he knifed his own culture and disposed it to money for his own…
All in all skateboarding was, is and will be a nice hobby, even if you just focus on the sport aspect.

Trick skating - degenerate art:

When people started to build skateparks and elaborate ramp skateing, the invention of many tricks began. In 1976, skateboarding was transformed by the invention of the ollie by Alan "Ollie" Gelfand.

The ollie was adapted to flat ground by Rodney Mullen in 1982. Mullen also invented the "Magic Flip", which was later renamed the Kickflip, as well many other tricks including, the 360 Kickflip, which is a 360 pop shove it and a kickflip in the same motion. All by Rodney Mullen invented tricks are listed in his German "Wikipedia"-Entry. The flat ground ollie has formed the basis of many street skating tricks.

In "Slam", Nick Hornby mentions many skateboarding tricks. Here the most important tricks are shown:

First of all: The Ollie

The Fakie Flip

The Heelflip

The Kickflip

The Shove-It

The McTwist

The 900 (permormed by Tony Hawk himself)

Greetings,

Victoire*

When everything seemed to have come together

Now I’m at the middle of “Slam” and my feelings about this book haven’t changed yet, in contrast to the main character Sam, who has definitive changed. I think because of this whole baby-thing, he becomes more as an adult instead of staying mentally eight or nine years old (see page 161). But I will come back to this with the characterizing of the persons in “Slam”.

As I did before I still like this book notwithstanding there are a few things which confused me. Probably I‘d like to ask Sam why he says in this book that he couldn‘t understand the people who get themselves „into a stew“ (page 76) when they judge other people. I think he is already into such a stew, because he thinks all the time about being someone better than the other people in his family. In other words he judges people the same way as Alicia‘s snobby parents do.

In addition I‘d also like to ask Sam how he could knew that Tony Hawk has switched him into future. In my opinion there‘s no plausible indication. And why he didn‘t ask himself with whom his mom got pregnant? Maybe he could had the hope that his mom got together whith his dad again (That‘s what I thought…=)). If I had written this book, these were the points I have developed more detailed.

And at least I wonder if he ever will tell Alicia about this „half-happened“.

As I already said, I like this book. I think it‘s well-written and there are many images, ideas and scenes I liked very much. Probably on page 77/78 when Sam imagined the world consisting just of skaters, or the opposing terms on page 91 when on one hand Alicia‘s noise sounded childish and on the other hand they were going to be parents.

Also I liked whenever Sam asked Tony Hawk for help (best one page 97), the whole conversation between Rabbit and him (page 109) and the situation on page 128 which shows that everyone just wants this what the others have and he hasn‘t got.

The day after tomorrow I have to finished „Slam“ so in front of me there‘s a weekend full of printed letters…
Love,
Victoire*