Nick Hornby -- A Long Way Down

Hornby isn't hard to overdose on, but I've more-or-less loved all his books that I've read (High Fidelity and How to Be Good, specifically). He takes tough, bizarre sorts of feelings and states, and normalizes them really well.

A Long Way Down is the story of four people who meet on New Year's Eve on the roof of a common suicide-jumpers building. (What would be the correct term for that?) Martin was a television presenter with a wife and family, who went out partying one too many times, got drunk, slept with a fifteen-year-old girl, and got sent to prison. Two years later, he's divorced, jobless, and suicidal. Maureen has a profoundly disabled son who needs constant, immediate care -- she hasn't had a social engagement beyond church in nearly twenty years. Eighteen-year-old Jess has family troubles, has just been dumped, and her grip on life -- and her sanity -- is none too firm. And JJ, an American living in London, has been delivering pizzas since his band broke up and his girlfriend left him.

Each of the four is an archetype, sure, but each grows and deepens throughout the book. The narration switches back and forth among them every few pages, and Hornby deftly gives up more and more personal information about his characters while resisting the urge to simplify their lives or make any grand statements.

I really enjoyed the book, being kind of depressed myself while I was reading it. Hornby's trademark, and well earned, is his ability to convey depression in funny, charming, thought-provoking phrases. All the reviews on the back of the book say this same thing, but you can't talk about Hornby's books without mentioning it; it's his thing and he does it really well. I can think of maybe two cheap shots he takes, and both fit into the story, give you insight about the characters, and don't derail the setting. Really, you see him avoid so many different cheap shots that the one or two he takes hardly matter.

I still think High Fidelity is kind of his best, but I keep being impressed by his other books, in part how different he manages to make them from one another. Different in setting and characters, I mean; his style is pretty constant.

Give it a try. If you like Hornby's other stuff, if you're depressed, if you like books about people rather than events, or if the idea of suicide doesn't bother you and depress you horribly, give it two tries. I thought it was pretty nifty.