Nick Hornby Talks The State of the Union on The Paste Podcast #8

Nick Hornby has had a wide and varied career as a writer since publishing his memoir about becoming a devout fan of Arsenal Football Club, Fever Pitch. The book would later be adapted for film in both the U.K. and the U.S.—Jimmy Fallon played a crazy Red Sox fan in the American one. Four of his other books—High Fidelity, About a Boy, A Long Way Down and Juliette Naked—were also adapted for film and TV, so was no surprise he’d also find success as a screenwriter on films like An Education, Wild and Brooklyn, which led to two Oscar nominations.

His latest project is a series of 10 10-minute TV episodes for the Sundance Channel. State of the Union stars Rosamund Pike and Chris O’Dowd as a struggling couple who meets in the pub each week before their marital counseling appointment. It’s a beautiful and all-too-real picture of the challenges of marriage.

Hornby joined us in the Paste Studio in New York for Episode 8 of the Paste Podcast, which also features an in-studio performance by the Gin Blossoms of their 1993 hit “Hey Jealousy” (first recorded for their 1989 debut Dusted).

Shane Ryan joins us to talk about the best—and creepiest—love stories in Game of Thrones. And we open a can of this week’s beer, Classic City Lager from Creature Comforts, one of the 10 best craft lagers in America.