(typewriter clacking) (bell ringing) (gentle music) - [Nick] Hi, I'm Nick Hornby.

This is "Just Like You", a novel about an unlikely romantic relationship set during the time of Brexit.

- [Mary Laura] What attracted you to telling a love story with a two-decade age gap?

- Our track record of making connections in our normal way is really not great.

We choose partners who read the same books as us, who maybe have had the same educational background as us, roughly in the same socioeconomic group, and yet we get divorced all over the place.

So, this clearly isn't the most important thing.

And the more I thought about these people, I thought maybe it's other things that we connect to.

Maybe it's philosophies of life and senses of humor and resilience and all kinds of things that actually, you can't find out about someone if you go on a few dates with them.

(lively music) - What do you think makes a Nick Hornby novel?

What do your books have in common?

- They tend to be set most of them here and now, where I live and I can't write any books that haven't got jokes in.

I don't know whether the jokes are funny, but I know that I can't write with a completely Poe face.

I have warmth for my people.

I mean, I don't think I could write the books if I didn't love the people at the center of them and I try and keep myself optimistic by making the books kind of optimistic, although not unrealistically so, I don't think.

(cheery music) - Why is it important to you to find the humor in this story?

- Every day consists of something that's really, really awful, possibly, and something funny and I don't really get books that are 300 pages of no funny, because there is no stretch of life that's 300 pages no funny.

- For more of my conversation with Nick Hornby, visit awordonwords.org and keep reading.

(bell ringing) - [Nick] I would love to try and write a musical, stage musical.

I know it's hard, but I love stage musicals and when they work, I don't think there's a better evening out.