Synopses & Reviews
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.
Review
"[Hornby] expands far beyond his usual territory....The true revelation of this funny and moving novel is its realistic, all-too-human characters, who stumble frequently, moving along their redemptive path only by increments." Booklist (Starred Review)
Review
"[A] well-executed and thoughtful tale that never digs too deep and simultaneously doesn't denigrate the seriousness of its characters' dilemmas. Highly moving and lively storytelling: Hornby's gifts become more apparent with each outing." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"[A] maudlin bit of tripe....[T]his cringe-making excuse for a novel takes the sappy contrivances of his 2001 book, How to Be Good, to an embarrassing new low....[A] sappy and utterly predictable novel." Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
Review
"[P]erhaps the funniest and most exhilarating novel ever written about group suicide....Only a cynic would not see A Long Way Down as a long way up from much modern fiction, which seems to have been written to supply us with reasons to jump." Philadelphia Inquirer
Review
"The sitcom contrivance of [Hornby's] set-up...becomes a writing trap; so does his decision to rely on the first person in a story that cries out for some objectivity, since his narrators aren't very insightful about anything but their own bad moods. (Grade: B-)" Entertainment Weekly
Review
"Hornby seems to have sent his ordinarily tuneful (and hilarious) ear on a holiday. One character sounds like the other sounds like the other sounds like the other. This might seem a small problem, but it wrenches the book's most important leg out from beneath it." Dallas Morning News
Review
"A Long Way Down works in enough analysis of its humans' conditions to entertain without overwhelming a strong story." The Oregonian (Portland, OR)
Review
"[A] mordant, brilliant novel....For a story that begins with one foot off the cliff, it's hard to imagine a novel more darkly and sublimely devoted to life." Boston Globe
Review
"Hornby is an engaging enough writer to wring a whole lot of enjoyment out of a flimsy and somewhat off-putting plot. A Long Way Down is not his best book, but calling it his worst while technically true is still misleading." South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Review
"In spite of the seriousness of the novel's main theme suicide [it] contains many funny moments....With A Long Way Down, Hornby has written one of those books that if you get into it, the ride is wild and enjoyable." Denver Post
Review
"By using suicide as a 'meet cute' premise, Hornby introduces into the book a sour, artificial flavor that despite clever writing and engaging characters he's never quite able to mask." San Jose Mercury News
Review
"That rare and unexpected creature, a playful novel about suicide....It's more about what happens when you don't kill yourself, and the tale Hornby subsequently tells is an unusual and unpredictable one." Chris Heath, The New York Times Book Review
Review
"Hornby took a risk with the premise of A Long Way Down, as it teeters on the edge between believability and authorial manipulation, but his narrative is so winning that only the least game of readers will refuse to play along." Rocky Mountain News
Review
"A Long Way Down overreaches and under-reaches at the same time....Despite the seemingly serious premise, what Hornby has produced is not a profound novel about death wishes, but a pedestrian one about lifestyles." Baltimore Sun
Review
"[T]he premise of the story is so implausible that it would make difficult fodder for a comic TV sketch, let alone a novel of more than 300 pages....A Long Way Down is almost certain to disappoint Hornby's legion of longtime fans." Minneapolis Star Tribune
Review
"The tireless bickering, especially between Martin and Jess, makes one wonder why the foursome doesn't kill one another. There are flashes of Hornby's talent for the tragicomic in Martin...but overall, this is a slip-up." Library Journal
Review
"Hornby's real talent is for dialogue, which is sharp, funny, and dripping with sarcasm. Take out the inner discourse, the ill-conceived group vacation, and the bewildering circular rants in between, and you've got a pretty salty bit of black humor. That is, take out all the bits that make A Long Way Down a novel, and you've got a tidy little comic screenplay....Unfortunately, A Long Way Down is not a cheeky British Hugh Grant snark-fest but a novel with pretensions at depth, theme, and story and a lazy one at that." Sacha Zimmerman, The New Republic (read the entire New Republic review)
Synopsis
In four distinct and riveting first-person voices, Hornby tells a story of four individuals confronting the limits of choice, circumstance, and their own morality. This is a tale of connections made and missed, punishing regrets, and the grace of second chances.
Synopsis
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.
Synopsis
In his 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.
Synopsis
In his 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.
Synopsis
From the bestselling author ofand#160;High Fidelity,and#160;About a Boy, andand#160;A Long Way Downand#160;comes a highly anticipated new novel. and#160; Set in 1960's London,and#160;
Funny Girland#160;is a livelyand#160;account ofand#160;the adventures of the intrepid young Sophie Straw as she navigates her transformation fromand#160;provincial ingand#233;nue to television starlet amid a constellation of delightful characters. Insightful andand#160;humorous, Nick Hornby's latest does what he does best: endears us to a cast of characters who are funny if flawed, and forces us to examine ourselves in the process.
About the Author
Nick Hornby is the author of the novels How to Be Good (a New York Times bestseller), High Fidelity, and About a Boy, 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 also the recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letters E. M. Forster Award, and the Orange Word International Writers London Award 2003.