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A Long Way Down

By Nick Hornby

(444)

| Hardcover | 9781573223027

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Book Description

In his eagerly awaited fourth novel, New York Times-bestselling author Nick Hornby mines the hearts and psyches of four lost souls who connect just when they've reached the end of the line.

Meet Martin, JJ, Jess, and Maureen. Four people who come together on New Year's Eve: a former TV talk show host, a musician, a teenage girl, and a mother. Three are British, one is American. They encounter one another on the roof of Topper's House, a London destination famous as the last stop for those ready to end their lives.

In four distinct and riveting first-person voices, Nick Hornby tells a story of four individuals confronting the limits of choice, circumstance, and their own mortality. This is a tale of connections made and missed, punishing regrets, and the grace of second chances.

Intense, hilarious, provocative, and moving, A Long Way Down is a novel about suicide that is, surprisingly, full of life.

What's your jumping-off point?

Maureen
Why is it the biggest sin of all? All your life you're told that you'll be going to this marvelous place when you pass on. And the one thing you can do to get you there a bit quicker is something that stops you getting there at all. Oh, I can see that it's a kind of queue-jumping. But if someone jumps the queue at the post office, people tut. Or sometimes they say "Excuse me, I was here first." They don't say "You will be consumed by hellfire for all eternity." That would be a bit strong.

Martin
I'd spent the previous couple of months looking up suicides on the Internet, just out of curiosity. And nearly every single time, the coroner says the same thing: "He took his own life while the balance of his mind was disturbed." And then you read the story about the poor bastard: His wife was sleeping with his best friend, he'd lost his job, his daughter had been killed in a road accident some months before . . . Hello, Mr. Coroner? I'm sorry, but there's no disturbed mental balance here, my friend. I'd say he got it just right.

Jess
I was at a party downstairs. It was a shit party, full of all these ancient crusties sitting on the floor drinking cider and smoking huge spliffs and listening to weirdo space-out reggae. At midnight, one of them clapped sarcastically, and a couple of others laughed, and that was it-Happy New Year to you, too. You could have turned up to that party as the happiest person in London, and you'd still have wanted to jump off the roof by five past twelve. And I wasn't the happiest person in London anyway. Obviously.

JJ
New Year's Eve was a night for sentimental losers. It was my own stupid fault. Of course there'd be a low-rent crowd up there. I should have picked a classier date-like March 28, when Virginia Woolf took her walk into the river, or November 25 (Nick Drake). If anybody had been on the roof on either of those nights, the chances are they would have been like-minded souls, rather than hopeless f*ck-ups who had somehow persuaded themselves that the end of a calendar year is in any way significant.

Critics

From a whisper to a scream

A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby 288pp, Viking, £17.99 Nick Hornby has grown up in public. Lad lit's original gang leader has written about football, music, parental responsibility and morality, his work organically evolving with maturity. This time, h ... (read full critics)

guardian.co.uk published on Sat, 25 Sep 2010

Meet the four toppers

A Long Way Down Nick Hornby Viking £17.99, pp258 PG Wodehouse may have been the last light-comic writer to be comfy in his pigeonhole. Since then, it has become hard to find a jester who wants to play anything but Hamlet. With his fourth novel, Nick ... (read full critics)

guardian.co.uk published on Sat, 25 Sep 2010

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22 Reviews

5 people find this helpful

The best Horny book to date; again, Hornby create characters that you can't love nor hate, and the more you read, the more you feel both attracted and disgusted by them. This is because Hornby just take a picture of everyone weak points, even those we won't see and/or admit.
And the ending, som ... (continue)

The best Horny book to date; again, Hornby create characters that you can't love nor hate, and the more you read, the more you feel both attracted and disgusted by them. This is because Hornby just take a picture of everyone weak points, even those we won't see and/or admit.
And the ending, somewhat non-conclusive, is another point in that theory: there's not a good way or a bad one, just a life you can live or not.

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Fito said on Feb 12, 2008 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

3 people find this helpful

The two most common complaints I have heard when discussing this book are also the two most common compliments I have heard it given; one being that the ending can be seen as relatively non-conclusive and the other being that none of the characters are easily pegged as "good" or "bad". My personal ... (continue)

The two most common complaints I have heard when discussing this book are also the two most common compliments I have heard it given; one being that the ending can be seen as relatively non-conclusive and the other being that none of the characters are easily pegged as "good" or "bad". My personal opinion is that Hornby presents some excellent characters here, but doesn't necessarily tell the best story.

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Bossdog said on Aug 3, 2007 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

2 people find this helpful

an unusual story, but too random to be liked

Unusual plot, good storytelling from Nick Hornby considering the four key characters are so random and different. The four main characters narrate the story in turn which really helped me to understand the characters.
Nevertheless, it was an unsatisfactory read. The underlying plot is just too ... (continue)

Unusual plot, good storytelling from Nick Hornby considering the four key characters are so random and different. The four main characters narrate the story in turn which really helped me to understand the characters.
Nevertheless, it was an unsatisfactory read. The underlying plot is just too weak. Four strangers who attempted suisde on new year's eve somehow become friends? Hmm... not convincing at all. Besides, it's so difficult to relate to any of the characters. Character portrayal is poor. None of the characters stood out for me. In fact, all four characters came across to me as odd and boring. Sometimes characters who may be odd and boring in its own right could form wonderful chemistry between themselves and form great reads, but it did not happen in this case sadly.
Disappointing read, but I won't write off Nick Hornby because even with a book like this, he still manages to demonstrate his superb storytelling ability.

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olivia said on Jul 16, 2008 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

It's not only about irony which Hornby gets on to explore drama. Reading throught his pages is wearing lenses enabling you to laught at death and dark life chapters or brainstorming on meaningless details of human being as well.
Call it distortion, if you like. I call it figuring out the way we ar ... (continue)

It's not only about irony which Hornby gets on to explore drama. Reading throught his pages is wearing lenses enabling you to laught at death and dark life chapters or brainstorming on meaningless details of human being as well.
Call it distortion, if you like. I call it figuring out the way we are: cus it's our personal lens; we put it on every day and our personal dimensions - which affect every day, feeling or action - will ensue.
At the top of a roof, small things can appear even smaller.
Go downstairs, have a look on ordinary: there's no wonder, but a lot worthing. Yep, a mess, but a worthing meaningless mess is enough to not jump sometimes. The game of changing our own settled dimensions, it's a good reason itself.

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Daniela * said on Sep 21, 2011 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

Four blokes (Hornby's frequent expression) on the roof of a London building want to jump off to end their miserable lives, but they only resolve to jump into each other with some comical effects. So tragedy will become a kind of game where no one knows the rules. Final score: few funny points for t ... (continue)

Four blokes (Hornby's frequent expression) on the roof of a London building want to jump off to end their miserable lives, but they only resolve to jump into each other with some comical effects. So tragedy will become a kind of game where no one knows the rules. Final score: few funny points for the author, he can do much more better. The four narrative voices are efficient for the first part, they help to understand the characters, but get really annoying in the long run because their succession interrupts the story's progress.

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Elena Mc said on Aug 3, 2010 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

Four people met in the New Year's Eve on the top of the roof of a building in central London...to throw them down of it. But their suicidal intentions turn in an unexpected way.
Although the characterization of each character is very strong and realistic, I didn't find the story very appealing, funn ... (continue)

Four people met in the New Year's Eve on the top of the roof of a building in central London...to throw them down of it. But their suicidal intentions turn in an unexpected way.
Although the characterization of each character is very strong and realistic, I didn't find the story very appealing, funny just from time to time. Not convincing.

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Ecila82 said on Jul 23, 2010 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

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Book Details

Rating:
(444)
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English Books
Hardcover 352 Pages
ISBN-10: 1573223026
ISBN-13: 9781573223027
Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover
Pub date: Jun 07, 2005
Dimensions: 1290 mm x 903 mm x 258 mm Just how big is that?
Also available as: Paperback, Audio CD, Audio Cassette, Others and eBook
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