Long Way Down
A Long Way Down by Nick HornbyFour very different people. One roof on a New Year’s Eve night in London. I’m sure you get the picture. Each chapter is told from a the point of view of one of the characters: a early twenties young American whose life feels over because of his band breakup; a fifty year old single mother of a severely disabled son; a teenaged terror dealing with her missing sister; a fallen from grace TV personality. All of these people feel hopeless and ready to chuck it all up and over the rooftop. This is the first of Nick’s books I’ve read although I have enjoyed the movie versions of About a Boy and High Fidelity. He does an excellent job of capturing the voices of these four very different personalities but in so doing caused me to find a couple of the characters a touch irritating. It was a bit like reading a diary so vivid that you nearly feel like you are there. Nick is of my generation and his writing somehow captures the essence and feeling of the time. I may look up his other books too because I suspect that I’d like them even better. -Flourish
posted by Flourish & Blotts at 6:03 AM
3 Comments:
Sometimes I feel I could be your fith charecter on that roof top. Hope the endings are up lifting because it would be just too depressing otherwise.
The ending isn't too bad. Its fairly realistic really with all of the main charcters surviving.
I highly recommend reading some of Hornby's other stuff. While the movie versions of "High Fidelity" and "About a Boy" are great, the books are even better. While "Long Way Down" was good, it's not nearly as well-written as those mentioned above. Hornby creates such rich, multi-diminsional characters, and I thought that was a bit lots in "LWD"'s ensemble.
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