A little bit of obsession, a little bit of rock ‘n’ roll

His fans will be delighted that Hornby has returned to this milieu with “Juliet, Naked.’’ The novel stars Duncan, the world’s leading authority on the retired and reclusive rock star Tucker Crowe, Duncan’s long-suffering girlfriend Annie, and Crowe himself, who comes out of hiding just in time to form one of the more curious love triangles in modern literary history.

That Annie and Duncan live drearily in a gloomy British seaside town (Gooleness) can be safely assumed, as can the fact that they are “stuck in a perpetual postgraduate world where gigs and books and films mattered more to them than they did to other people of their age.’’

What sets the plot in motion is the release of Crowe’s new record, his first in 20 years. In fact, the record isn’t new at all. It’s a set of demos from his searing and celebrated breakup album, “Juliet.’’ Duncan listens to the project (dubbed “Juliet, Naked’’ by Crowologists) and deems it a classic. Annie finds it insufferable. Her review, which Duncan indignantly agrees to post on the official Tucker Crowe fan website, draws an unexpected fan letter - from Crowe himself. The two strike up a flirtatious correspondence that evolves into a romance of sorts.

Hornby is clearly having quite a time with all this, right down to the fake Wikipedia entries detailing Crowe’s career. But he’s at his best when he writes about the emotional effects of song. Upon hearing “Juliet, Naked’’ for the first time, Duncan weeps. A passerby asks, incredulously, whether he’s crying about music.

“ ‘Well,’ said Duncan, ‘I’m not crying about it. I’m not sure that’s the right preposition.’ ’’ Later, he observes, “One thing about great art: it made you love people more, forgive them their petty transgressions. It worked in the way that religion was supposed to, if you thought about it.’’

Not surprisingly, Duncan is far more emotionally available to Crowe than to the woman he’s lived with for nearly 15 years. Although she’s pushing 40 and longing for a child, Annie accepts this arrangement and even endeavors to support fandom. “To admit that Duncan wasn’t up to much was to own up publicly to . . . terrible lapses in judgment and taste. She had stuck up for Spandau Ballet in just the same way at school, even after she had stopped liking them.’’

Fortunately for all involved, Crowe’s interest in Annie coincides with Duncan’s unlikely decision to leave her for another woman.

Crowe himself dominates the second half of the book. At first blush, he seems straight out of central casting, a droll Dylan manqué who squanders his talents to drink and winds up with multiple ex-wives and estranged children. But Hornby manages to capture the heart of his bittersweet legacy. “Sometimes he dropped down on one knee to sing, and sometimes audiences rose to their feet, and sometimes he felt as though he were a proper entertainer, someone whose job it was to make extravagant emotional gestures to help people feel.’’

Eventually, Crowe travels to England with his precocious 6-year-old son, Jackson. Upon arriving, the singer suffers a heart attack, which his various ex-wives use as a pretext to gather his offspring. Fearing a scene of unbearable sentiment, Crowe calls Annie to his bedside and alights with her and Jackson to Gooleness.

It’s all a bit hard to swallow. But such is the nature of a Hornby novel. You buy into certain narrative conveniences for the sake of a well-spun yarn.

In this case, we get the pleasure of watching Duncan come face to face with the object of his obsession. After an initial spat, the two hug. “Annie laughed, but Duncan held on a little too long, and she could see that he had his eyes closed.’’ As an obsessed fan myself, I can attest to the fact that Hornby gets the dynamics just right here, the nervous confusion of reverence and homoeroticism. He even manages to contrive a happy ending for Annie and Crowe, albeit one inclined toward the far-fetched standards of Hollywood.

“Juliet, Naked’’ lacks the loveable hero of “High Fidelity,’’ much of its easy wit, and a number of its characters tip pretty quickly into caricature. But it’s a more ambitious book, with an intricate plot and a sprawling cast that offers a nod toward Dickens, one of the author’s avowed heroes.

Still, as I read along, I couldn’t help thinking about “Songbook,’’ a celebration of favorite records that Hornby put out in 2002. In that book, he writes about the world with considerably more insight and feeling than he allows the characters in “Juliet.’’ His fiction is always engaging, but it seeks too much to charm. Which is a sharp way of saying something that I hope can be read as kind: As much as I enjoyed Crowe and his ardent Crowologists, I suspect I’d have been happier in the company of Hornby himself.

Steve Almond’s new book, “Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life,’’ is due out next spring.