A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby

"I didn't know how I'd ended up drinking whisky in the lounge of a well-known TV personality when I'd actually left the house to kill myself, and you could tell that JJ and Martin were confused about the evening too."

I was having yet another crappy week at work that was bringing me down, and thought that reading a book on people setting out to commit suicide from a roof was a great, life-affirming idea. Maybe that notion wasn’t as crazy as it sounds now that I’ve committed it to the computer screen.

This novel has been sitting in my ‘to-read’ pile for quite some time now, having bought myself a copy when I heard the film version was coming out. For those who have read this blog for a while you will be all too familiar with my preference to read the source novel before seeing the film adaptation. In any case, I missed its fairly brief run at the cinemas and so had plenty of time on my hands to get to grips with the novel.

In the past, I’ve been a firm advocate of Hornby’s work, thoroughly enjoying the different paths his tales have taken in engaging novels like About a Boy and my favourite, High Fidelity.  This entry into his bibliography fails to reach the heights of those two in my humble opinion. I think, deep down, it felt that none of the characters was really going to kill themselves, there seemed an underlying sense of optimism, and perhaps that isn't such a bad thing. It certainly made the book readable.

There are some poignant moments and aspects which certainly rang true, but I just felt this slightly didn't quite click with me.

4 out of 5 new apartments don't have carpet apparently.