Review: A Long Way Down

Review: A Long Way Down, by Nick Hornby

This was the selection of my monthly book club. I read it last week while traveling - though not in time for the book club meeting. My bad.

Hornby certainly has a gift for narrative and dialog. The book was a pleasure to read and occupied me during the plane and car trips. By my measure, though, that wasn’t enough to overcome it’s fundamental flaws: a contrived plot and comic and dramatic misfires.

The plot revolves around four individuals who choose, quite coincidentally, the same time and place to commit suicide. We all know that suicide rates increase around the holidays, and fair enough, midnight on New Year’s Eve has a poetic ring to it. But who knew there’d be a line forming at the top of the building?

The four of them manage to talk each other down from the ledge and form a sort of club. But, wouldn’t you know it, they couldn’t be more different: A self-absorbed morning-show TV personality whose shenanigans cost him his job, marriage, and, for a time, his personal liberty; a dowdy shut-in overwhelmed by the perpetual demands of caring for a disabled son; a wild and wacky teenager coping with a family tragedy, and whose parents just don’t understand her; and a thirty-something rocker with a stalled career and an ex-girlfriend. Despite (or rather because of) their differences, they find themselves in a number of predicaments as they gradually help each other to realize that, hey,  maybe they don’t want to die after all.

I wouldn’t mind the contrived premise so much if it just led somewhere interesting. Billed as a dark comedy, it fails on both counts.

I’ll grant you that, as topics go, suicide’s pretty dark. The thing is, I just never felt for these characters. In their own voices, they explain what they did and why they did it, but I never felt the depth of their desperation and depression. The supporting characters were also wasted. We should’ve felt the withering scorn of the jilted wife, or the despair of a couple incapable of easing their daughter’s pain. Instead, we’re given supporting caricatures, not characters. The book reaches a dramatic climax of sorts when someone finally does off himself. But it’s almost a throw-away moment with no lasting impact.

So, that just leaves the comedy. I liked the witty repartee between the characters (see, I said he has a gift for dialog), but it wasn’t enough to make up for the sitcom-esque plot turns. The quartet finds itself in the media spotlight and they behave badly. The quartet takes a trip to the beach. Cue the laugh track.

This is the first Hornby novel I’ve read. Some of his other work has been turned into first-rate movies, though (About a Boy, High Fidelity), so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. My recommendation: pass on this one and pick up one of those instead.