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Critics' Opinion:
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First Published:
Jun 2005, 352 pages
Paperback:
May 2006, 352 pages
Book Reviewed by:
BookBrowse Review Team
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Intense, hilarious, provocative, and moving, A Long Way Down is a novel about suicide that is, surprisingly, full of life.
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.
MARTIN.
Can I explain why I wanted to jump off the top of a tower block? Of
course I can explain why I wanted to jump off the top of a tower
block. I'm not a bloody idiot. I can explain it because it wasn't
inexplicable: it was a logical decision, the product of proper
thought. It wasn't even very serious thought, either. I don't mean it
was whimsical - I just meant that it wasn't terribly complicated, or
agonised. Put it this way: say you were, I don't know, an assistant
bank manager, in Guildford. And you'd been thinking of emigrating, and
then you were offered the job of managing a bank in Sydney. Well, even
though it's a pretty straightforward decision, you'd still have to
think for a bit, wouldn't you? You'd at least have to work out whether
you could bear to move, whether you could leave your ...
A Long Way Down is told from the points of view of four very different people who meet on the roof of a London building each planning to commit suicide. From this dubious beginning they form a most unlikely friendship which we see develop from their alternating points of view over 3 months.
This is one of those books that you're either going to love or hate. Take for example, the 4 big pre-publication reviewers: Publishers Weekly and Booklist give starred reviews and Kirkus Reviews describes it as "well-executed and thoughtful", but Library Journal slams it as "surprisingly tedious" and a "slip-up". Read the excerpt at BookBrowse to decide if this is likely to be a good choice for you...continued
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(Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).
Nick Hornby is the author of the novels How to Be Good, High Fidelity, About a Boy and A Long Way Down, and of the memoir Fever Pitch. He is also the author of Songbook, a finalist for a National Book Critics Circle Award, and editor of the short-story collection Speaking with the Angel. He is the recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letters E. M. Forster Award, and the Orange Word International Writers London Award ...
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