A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby
Odd book. Four people meet on the top of an apartment building on New Year’s Eve, each ready to jump. There is a young America, a privileged white teen girl bent on being bad, a middle aged woman with a severely developmentally disabled son, and a has-been talk show host who’s done time in for having sex with a fifteen year old girl. They’re all depressed, to the point of of suicide - all “nutters”, except they aren’t, really.
There are moments when I laughed out loud, which when you think about the fact that it’s a book about suicide is kind of funny in itself…
These four come together and form a “gang” to keep an eye on each other, first, until Valentine’s Day since that’s the #2 most popular day to “top yourself” and then for ninety days. Ninety days is the length of time it takes for things to change enough, so maybe you won’t “top yourself”.
They are an ill-suited gang. They don’t like each other, but they decide to stick it out, taking a pathetic “vacation” together, coffee at Starbucks and an “intervention”.
The story jumps around from narrator to narrator, so they all get a chance to tell the story through their own eyes. Hornby writes a bleakly humorous downer, but the message is clear - we all need each other and time does make things change, often for the better. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows, but it can be OK.
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