2006: #22 – A Long Way Down (Nick Hornby)

A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby
Published by Riverhead Books on June 7, 2005
Genres: literary fiction
Pages: 333

New Year's Eve at Toppers' House, North London's most popular suicide spot. And four strangers are about to discover that doing away with yourself isn't quite the private act they'd each expected.
 
Perma-tanned Martin Sharp's a disgraced breakfast TV presenter who had it all - the kids, the wife, the pad, the great career - and wasted it away. Killing himself is Martin's logical and appropriate response to an unlivable life.
 
Maureen has to do it tonight, because of Matty being in the home. He was never able to do any of the normal things kids do - like walk or talk - and loving-mum Maureen can't cope any more. Dutiful Catholic that she is, she's ready to commit the 'biggest sin of all'.
 
Half-crazed with heartbreak, loneliness, adolescent angst, seven Bacardi Breezers and two Special Brews, Jess's ready to jump, to fly off the roof.
 
Finally, there's JJ - tall, cool, American, looks like a rock-star, sometimes thinks he plays his guitar like one - who's weighted down with a heap of problems, and pizza.
 
Four strangers, who moments before were convinced that they were alone and going to end it all that way, share out the pizza and begin to talk ... Only to find that they have even less in common than first suspected.
 
Nick Hornby's A Long Way Down is a novel that asks some of the big questions: about life and death, strangers and friendship, love and pain, and whether a group of losers, and pizza, can really see you through a long, dark night of the soul.

Book #22 was A Long Way Down, by Nick Hornby.

Not a bad book, I guess I enjoyed it. This is one of those books I put on my list because it got a lot of buzz. It was a little depressing, and there wasn’t a whole lot of resolution. And only one (maybe 2) character(s) was especially likeable.

Book count: 22
Pages in book: 352
Page count: 9,322
Words in book: 91,183
Word count:2,665,326

1,000,000 words surpassed — 2/2/06
2,000,000 words surpassed — 2/14/06