A Long Way Down (Paperback) by Nick Hornby - Reviews, Discussion, Bookclubs, Lists

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Raych rated it:

(review of isbn 1594481938)

03/20/08

Read in February, 2008

Oh popular authors, I'm always so nervous about you. I mean, on the one hand I always figure that if so many people like you, there must be something good about you. But then, so many people like harlequin romances, and Dane Cook, and Big Brother. People are idiots. Even when they aren't, they can't always be trusted. My friend Amy actually loved Confessions of a Slacker Wife, and my husband really liked The Innocent Man, a.k.a. Was John Grisham Always This Bad And I Just Didn't Notice?, and my ...more Oh popular authors, I'm always so nervous about you. I mean, on the one hand I always figure that if so many people like you, there must be something good about you. But then, so many people like harlequin romances, and Dane Cook, and Big Brother. People are idiots. Even when they aren't, they can't always be trusted. My friend Amy actually loved Confessions of a Slacker Wife, and my husband really liked The Innocent Man, a.k.a. Was John Grisham Always This Bad And I Just Didn't Notice?, and my friend Karen lists as her top three books ever Eli Wiesel's Night (awesome), The Kite Runner (also awesome), and friggin Million Little Pieces (total crap). These are bright, funny people. I voluntarily hang out with them. But they actually enjoy books that are total tripe, so the fact that people on the whole enjoy Nick Hornby's books means nothing.

I enjoyed the hell out of Long Way Down. Seriously, I did not expect to love it this much. And then a friend asked me what I was reading, and all I had to say was 'This book about four people who, separately, decide to throw themselves off a tall building on New Years Eve, but then they all get up there and, hey, there's three other people up here. Well, this is awkward' and now she's going to read it, because how hilarious is that? What a ridiculous and somehow totally believable premise!

Ok, so it's New Years Eve, and Martin (because he is an alcoholic ex-morning-show-host who has been in all the papers lately for sleeping with a fifteen-year-old who, to his credit, told him she was sixteen, which isn't exactly illegal, but whose wife left him for it anyways, and took their two kids), Maureen (because her son Matty is a vegetable, always has been and always will be, and she hasn't done anything worth mentioning in the last twenty years besides care for him and become socially awkward), JJ (because his band broke up and his girlfriend left him, although the reason he initially gives is that he has CCR, a totally fictional disease and also a wicked 60's rock band) and Jess (because she has family and relationship problems, but mostly just because she is young and nuts and it seemed like a good idea at the time) have all lugged themselves to the top of Toppers' House with the intention of doing themselves in. But then, how do you toss yourself off a building when there's other people hanging around? No one wants to be the first, and for sure no one wants to be the last. So they get to chatting and eventually decide to go solve Jess's most immediate problem, which has something to do with a boy and an explanation.

That solved, they begin finding other things to do, other things to tether them to the earth and keep them from jumping. Oh sure, they still talk about it, and even arrange to meet back on Toppers' on Valentine's Day so they can finally give themselves the old heave-ho. But with one thing and another, it's really hard to find time to kill yourself, you know?

At one point, Maureen (she of the vegetable son) says, 'You'd think this would be the story of four people who met because they were unhappy, and wanted to help each other. But it hadn't been...it had been the story of four people who met because they were unhappy and then swore at each other.' And it never changes. Martin begins the book by sitting on Jess's head (to prevent her from jumping, which is ostensibly kind but kind of a rough way to go about things) and the last page finds her listing all the ways that he's failed at life.

And yet, even though the characters are perverted (Martin), coarse (Jess), lazy (JJ), and really insurmountably lame (Maureen), and none of them says more than two kind words to each other the entire 333 pages, they're terribly endearing. It's their complete reluctance to be together combined with their absolute need for each other that sets the stage for all of the hilarious moments (of which there are many) and all of the poignant ones (of which there are mercifully few). Nothing really is solved, and no one lives happily ever after, but I closed the book with such a sense of sweet satisfaction. I never do this, because I think it's cheating, but I'm going to steal a line from the New York Times Book Review: 'Hornby is a writer who dares to be witty, intelligent and emotionally generous all at once.'

Hear hear.

(review originally posted on www.booksidoneread.blogspot.com)...less

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Mark rated it:

(review of isbn 1594481938)

09/05/07

Read in September, 2007

Boy, is there anyone who has offered up more stinkers than Nick flippin' Hornby. And, was he so great to begin with? Even his better, earlier works were marginally good. Nothing life changing.

Which is kinda the point of why he's so awful: he is intentionally trying to be life changing in every book, essay, magazine column or whatever. He thinks he can somehow find the right prose combination for some idea or mindset to click and for it to change one's life ... much like these things...more

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Trish rated it:

(review of isbn 1573223026)

12/09/07

Read in June, 2005

I'm a Nick Hornby fan. And it's more than just enjoying his writing; I have a warm and fuzzy affection for him. So even when one of his books fails to utterly delight and transport me (How to Be Good, for example), I'm still on his side.

Michiko Kakutani clearly has no such affection for Hornby. Her review of A Long Way Down is savage. Her chief complaint is that the book contrives to arrive at an implausibly sappy conclusion. Which is odd, because I think the book admirably avoids e...more I'm a Nick Hornby fan. And it's more than just enjoying his writing; I have a warm and fuzzy affection for him. So even when one of his books fails to utterly delight and transport me (How to Be Good, for example), I'm still on his side.

Michiko Kakutani clearly has no such affection for Hornby. Her review of A Long Way Down is savage. Her chief complaint is that the book contrives to arrive at an implausibly sappy conclusion. Which is odd, because I think the book admirably avoids easy answers or cloying sentimentality.

True, it begins with a colossal coincidence: Four people climb to the top of the same building with the thought of a suicidal plummet. Of course, once Maureen taps Martin on the shoulder, and once they see teen-age Jess taking a run for the parapet, and once JJ arrives with pizza, they can't really jump to their deaths, can they? Instead they munch a few slices and decide to humor Jess by helping her track down her "ex-boyfriend," Chas, who she claims not to have been stalking, unless endless phone calls and unexpected visits to his workplace constitute stalking.

I didn't find it difficult to roll with the premise, in part because the novel is told in rotating first person, first Martin, then Maureen, then Jess, then JJ. As you step into each person's shoes, it's not too difficult to understand why they might mull ending it all, and why a random collision with a stranger might give each one pause.

Kakutani accuses Hornby of coralling the characters into a touchy-feely support group, but that's exactly what they aren't. None of them have much in common beyond their suicidal thoughts, and even those are different shades of blue. Jess is just mad, all impulse and ignorance and id. Martin has royally fucked up, an ill-fated fling with a coke-snorting 15-year-old landing him in the clink and out of his family and job. Maureen is sadled with a disabled son and a life devoid of life. And JJ may claim to be dying of "CCR," but his real problem is an addiction to rock 'n' roll and his inability to score a fix now that his band has dissolved.

There aren't easy answers. Jess's missing sister isn't going to reappear. Jess won't be hit with a sudden wave of sanity. Maureen's son isn't going to recover (or die). Martin can't undo the damage he's done, or even quickly become the type of person who won't cock up his life so badly. And JJ isn't about to discover a new purpose in life, like caring for Maureen's vegetable son or teaching underprivileged kids to play the guitar. There's no redemptive power of love on display. And the four members of the ad hoc support group never particularly like one another.

So Michiko and I will just have to be at opposite ends of the spectrum on this one.

The question for me, then, is where should this be placed in the Hornby canon? If his best is High Fidelity, and I believe it is, and if About a Boy takes second ... I think A Long Way Down is better than How to Be Good, perhaps the third-best Hornby novel. I like it, but it won't call out to be re-read any time soon. I'd recommend it to fellow Hornby afficionados, but I won't trumpet its merits far and wide, proselytizing to the masses.

I turned down the corner of a page, and Aaron could immediately tell what passage I wanted to quote:

How do people, like, not curse? How is it possible? There are these gaps in speech where you just have to put a "fuck." I'll tell you who the most admirable people in the world are: newscasters. If that was me, I'd be like, "And the motherfuckers flew the fucking plane right into the Twin Towers." How could you not, if you're a human being? Maybe they're not so admirable. Maybe they're robot zombies....less

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Josh rated it:

(review of isbn 1594481938)

10/24/07

bookshelves: comedy

Read in July, 2007

recommends it for: to people who are secure enough to laugh at their own despair

I didn't get into Hornby for the same reason as everyone else, (they like Jon Cusak in High Fidelity). A Long Way Down was recommended to me by a friend and I needed a light read for the summer so I picked it up.

I have never actually laughed out loud while reading a book until I read this one. Running With Scissors was the closest I came, but Augusten Burroughs was such an unrealistic and absurd character, (which is ironic because he was based on a real person), that it seemed too ...more

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Kat rated it:

(review of isbn 1594481938)

08/14/07

bookshelves: readrecently, to-read

Read in August, 2007

recommends it for: Empathetic Adults

I just read this book in two days. It was great. The story is told from four perspectives, and because of the great writing by Hornby you can't set it down mid chapter. You want to race through the chapters to complete each character's thoughts and the picture each one is painting of the same storyline.

What a great concept too, four strangers meet and share a suicidal moment, and end up sharing more because of meeting each other.

Each character was hilarious in their own ...more

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brook rated it:

(review of isbn 1594481938)

07/23/07

Read in July, 2007

recommends it for: no one

this book was so infuriating. i found it in borders, on sale for $3. i thought it was a steal, and i really enjoyed high fidelity, so why not? now i just feel ripped off.

the story is about 4 random people that meet on the roof a building. they all want to kill themselves, for completely pitiful reasons. they end up not killing themselves; in fact, they journey through the path to recovery by depending on one another. the thing is, they don't even get along, and none of the chara...more

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Tracy rated it:

(review of isbn 1594481938)

09/10/07

Read in September, 2005

One wouldn't think that a book that begins when the four main characters meet on a roof, each contemplating suicide, could be touching AND funny, but this was. The relationships these characters develop with one another reveal the way that external situations can create unlikely friendships, and how difficult a word like "friend" can be to use or comprehend. To quote the Publishers Weekly review, "If Camus had written a grown-up version of The Breakfast Club, the result might ha...more

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Imogen rated it:

(review of isbn 1594481938)

12/04/08

Read in December, 2005

I didn't realize I hadn't written about this, but Kerry just posted that she is reading it and no review from me came up so I will tell you that I liked this book a lot. I mean, I was surprised at how much I liked it- mostly I picked it up on a whim because I was going on a trip somewhere and a UK edition came in, with the laundry line cover, and I said to myself, huh. I am still ambivalent about Nick Hornby, even though what I've read ( High Fidelity and his brilliant, genius, wonderful Believe...more

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Chris rated it:

(review of isbn 1594481938)

12/20/08

This book almost deserved one star. The only thing that saved it from being a complete and utter waste of my time was that Nick Horny writes the occasional very witty passage, and there were two (count them, two) observations that I found actually interesting. So that totals about five pages that I actually enjoyed.

The rest was quintessential fluffy drivel, which does have its place, but not when the book is discussing suicide, the meaning of life (or the lack thereof), and other s...more This book almost deserved one star. The only thing that saved it from being a complete and utter waste of my time was that Nick Horny writes the occasional very witty passage, and there were two (count them, two) observations that I found actually interesting. So that totals about five pages that I actually enjoyed.

The rest was quintessential fluffy drivel, which does have its place, but not when the book is discussing suicide, the meaning of life (or the lack thereof), and other such Profound Topics. The multiple point-of-view narrations could have added a very interesting aspect to exploring suicide and its aftermath, except for the fact that they pretty much all had the same point of view and the same voice -- Hornby's. Every time any character made a witty joke or a clever observation, it could have just of easily come from the other characters, and you got the distinct impression that Hornby had been having a pint with his mates, made some witty comment about T.V. announcers or quiz shows, and thought, "Nick old bloke, write that one down. Your going to want to put that in your next book!" It was fine that the narrator in High Fidelity was a Hornby stand in, but when the 16 year old punk-rich girl, the middle-aged T.V. host, the 50 year old woman with a disabled son, and the fallen rock star are ALL Hornby stand ins it gets a bit much.

Okay, some of this might be considered "Spoilers" so beware (I'm not calling them spoilers, cause there's nothing to spoil, but there you are). To start, the premise is both ridiculous yet tediously predictable: four people meet on a roof to kill them selves! Who wants to bet they DON'T jump? Who wants to bet the improbably become entangled in each other's lives? Who wants to bet they end up improbably helping one another learn Important Truths about Themselves and Life? Who wants to bet that, when they meet up in 90 days on the roof to jump, none of them kill themselves, because they now all want to live? Who wants to bet that they all get sort of Warm, Fuzzy, Life-Affirming Endings, even if one or two are Extremely Deep in that they learn No Meaning is The Meaning?

Not that I want to spoil anything, but anyone taking those bets is very likely to win. The ending was truly worse than I had expected. It was good for a few chuckles, but then so are ZIggy and Garfield, yet I avoid them on a daily basis. It might have only taken me a week of twice-daily 20 minute bus-rides to finish this, but it was still a waste of time -- I could have been reading vampire romance manga....less

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Joni rated it:

(review of isbn 1594481938)

07/31/08

recommends it for: teenagers/adults

Highly enjoyed this book. The plot was strong, and the characters and their situations were vivid and believable. Lots have people have been saying that they were annoyed by the fact that the four main characters are so stereotypical, but i actually think that that was what made the book work. It was because they were so typically different that their interactions were so funny and interesting...if that makes sense?

The only thing I would say, I was a bit put-off by the huge amount of...more

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Colleen rated it:

(review of isbn 1594481938)

09/23/07

Read in September, 2007

recommends it for: Those who've felt depressed

Sometimes when you listen to a book on audio CD, it's hard to tell if the characters sound so alive because the author wrote them that way, or because the voice actors are brilliant. I'll have to take a look at the actual book to be sure, but Hornby's use of fillers such as "like," "you know," and "whatever" made his dialogue writing quite realistic.

That's a good thing when an entire book is composed of inner monologues. If only this book existed when ...more

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Luke rated it:

(review of isbn 1594481938)

09/20/07

bookshelves: literature

Has a copy to sell/swap — Read in September, 2007

Interesting weaving of 4 first person accounts of a group that meets on a roof just before they attempt to commit suicide. At times, I wanted to put it down and give it up, namely at the point that the teenage character takes over the narrative. Much like Harry Potter in the 5th book, fictional teenagers are done best when they drive you nuts as an adult reader. Each character is brilliantly deep, and the title of the book is a metaphor for the further falling that someone can do after conside...more Interesting weaving of 4 first person accounts of a group that meets on a roof just before they attempt to commit suicide. At times, I wanted to put it down and give it up, namely at the point that the teenage character takes over the narrative. Much like Harry Potter in the 5th book, fictional teenagers are done best when they drive you nuts as an adult reader. Each character is brilliantly deep, and the title of the book is a metaphor for the further falling that someone can do after considering that suicide is their only option left.

Nick Hornby hasn't really caught me since "About A Boy" and "High Fidelity", both of which I highly recommend. "How To Be Good" digs into a much more serious fare compared to his previous two outings, and lacks the little touches of Hornby's personality that I truly loved in his previous novels: his humor and his passion for music. There is a character that clearly embodies both of these aspects in "A Long Way Down", and I was drawn to him more than the others.

Hornby hits a few profound notes:
Jess, the troubled teenager, talks about the fact that she could try to be good, but left to herself she can't do it. It's like telling a bathtub full of water to pull the plug but not let the water drain; it just can't happen. Brilliant illustration of sin.
The whole concept of this suffering community of souls, all with different entry points, are able to carry each other through. One of the characters is a devout Catholic, and she is never ridiculed for her having faith; in a way, she's the one they most respect because she has stuck with it the longest and continues to struggle with her hurts.

In the end, a mostly satisfying read, but should follow a reading of the rest of Hornby's catalog. I enjoy every one of his books, but much like those U2 fans still waiting for another "Joshua Tree", I long for another "High Fidelity" from Hornby. But like a good music fan, I understand that Hornby will continue to explore his art rather than trying to play the same note for his entire career....less

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Nancy rated it:

(review of isbn 1594481938)

04/26/07

In "A Long Way Down," four very different people are brought together by their shared desire to commit suicide. Hornby tells the story in first-person narrative, switching between each of the four characters. He tries to make their voices distinct from each other, but he does this very superficially. For example, the teenager uses a lot of slang and curse words, and the matron winces mentally whenever the teenager curses. Otherwise, their voices are identical: very breezy, chatty, ...more

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Reader rated it:

(review of isbn 1594481938)

07/17/07

bookshelves: from_the_library

So I recently finished A Long Way Down by Nick Hornsby. I really liked the film High Fidelity. I know we could all get distracted by the fact that I saw the movie without reading the book, but this is one of the rare times I haven't read the book. Besides, it would detract from my point. By now you are probably asking what my point is. My point is the F word. Now I can appreciate a good vulgarity when placed appropriately. I can even understand their judicious use in time of stress or high spiri...more

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Kate rated it:

(review of isbn 1594481938)

04/21/08

Read in April, 2008

recommended to Kate by: Matt
recommends it for: Anyone who appreciates dry humor

I had no idea what this book was about. Someone recommended the author to me and I couldnt find the book they recommended. This book was on sale for $5.67 so I figured what the hell.

This turned out to be one of the best books Ive read in a long time. The manner in which its written is different from anything that I have experienced before. The back and forth between characters happens so fast that it almost has the spirit and appeal of British comedies. If you dont appreciate the Br...more

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Elle rated it:

(review of isbn 1594481938)

12/16/08

Read in February, 2008

I tried to finish this book on two separate occasions, and could not. It kept loosing me. I just did not care about the characters enough.

Nick Hornby is a hit of miss for me, but I like his clever cheek enough to keep trying.

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Reszzpati rated it:

(review of isbn 1594481938)

01/07/09

Read in January, 2006

In his forth novel, the author known for his genre of 'laddism' dwell deep into the matter of 'life on the edge' as his characters were intending to commit suicide (by jumping from a 15-story building- hence the title ' A Long Way Down'), each with their own reason.
Readers of his three previous novels would anticipate his pattern on precise, wry understanding of a certain kind of modestly privileged, emotionally clumsy white 30-something male; he skillfully pinpointed habits and emotiona...more

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Antof9 rated it:

(review of isbn 1594481938)

12/31/08

bookshelves: 2006-read, unfulfilling

Read in October, 2006

I loved the first 3/4 of this book. I thought it was very clever writing, an original idea, etc. The last quarter, like so many books I've read lately, seemed like a lot of wandering around as the author tried to get out of it. It's hard to end well, I think. Must be.

A couple things I really enjoyed:
<pre><ul><li>The quote on the first page -- The cure for unhappiness is happiness, I don't care what anyone says. - Elizabeth McCracken, Niagara Falls All Over...more

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Carrie rated it:

(review of isbn 1594481938)

11/25/08

Read in August, 2005

Dear Nick Hornby,

I am having mixed feelings about you right now. I just finished listening to your recent release and enjoyed it very much. The story about 4 very different people who meet on the roof of a building where they planned to commit suicide is great. It was enthralling to find out how they all interact with each other, and what happens to them when they decide to leave the roof rather than jump that night. I love the "90 day" idea, especially. I was addicted to ...more

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Tara rated it:

(review of isbn 1594481938)

12/29/08

This book, and How to Be Good, solidified Hornby as one of my favorite authors. This certainly showcases his character-creating talents. He manages to write from 4 different points of view: a troublemaking teenage girl, a lonely old woman, a disheartened young American man, and a jaded middle-aged talk show host.
In a strange series of events (I won't give it away), all of these characters manage to meet up and go on a journey together. And you as the reader see how they interact with one ...more

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