A Long Way Down

The weeks that followed my college graduation were marked with bouts of existential angst that soon turned into a series of serious depressive episodes. My waking hours were spent in a self-centered funk, the primary question running around my head being What is the Least Painful Way To End It All? As though alerted by fatherly spider-senses, my dad gave me a hardcover copy of Nick Hornby’s A Long Way Down on an evening where I was feeling as cheerful as a My Chemical Romance song. I’m not sure if my dad gave me that because he saw a Nick Hornby book in my room or if he really did sense that I was stuck in a deep pit of angst and despair. Little did he know that by giving me that book, he gave a rope I could use to crawl back into the surface of the world.

A Long Way Down is the story of four strangers whose accidental meeting at a famous suicide spot makes them realize that suicide isn’t exactly the private, individual act they thought it would be. Drawn together by the unusual experience of being around others during what they thought would be the last moments of their lives, the four agreed to live for six more weeks before they attempt suicide again. What happens next is a series of unusual events that force the characters to confront big questions on life, death, love, friendship, and whether or not four losers with no real reason to live can help each other see a way around the dead end of their lives.

After every few pages, I would get this urge to jump and down and scream, “That’s me! That’s me!” This book was able to articulate every single depressive thought I had using everyday language, complete with British slang and the liberal use of the F word. I was shocked out of my shell to find that this paragraph from page 119 summed up the overall sense of hopelessness I felt:

“You’re fucked. You thought you were going to be someone, but now it’s obvious you’re nobody. You haven’t got as much talent as you thought you had, and there was no Plan B, and you got no skills and no education, and now you’re looking at forty or fifty years of nothing. Less than nothing, probably. That’s pretty heavy. That’s worse than having the brain thing, because what you got now will take a lot longer to kill you. You’ve got the choice of a slow painful death, or a quick merciful one.”

Damn, did I want to put the book down and take a razor blade to my wrists right then and there. But I figured that A Long Way Down would get less depressing as the plot unfurled, so I read on. And it did get better in the sense that I had epiphany after epiphany about suicide, death, and life. I half-expected the book to end with a cheesy inspirational message about how life is too good to waste, etc. etc. The last few pages, however, are realistically ambiguous and aimless, leading up to an ending that opens more avenues for questions and reflection.

Overall, what I picked up from A Long Way Down is not a cheap, sentimental reason to keep on living. There’s no formula to patch up lives and no instant solutions to existential crises. It did help me see that while life is generally full of meaningless accidents and responsibilities you can’t escape from, it’s the bright sparks of happiness that makes life worth living. At least, for a while.

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August 5, 2007 Written by: Lauren | Filed Under Books

Comments

3 Responses to “A Long Way Down”

Kae on August 5th, 2007 1:06 pm

Yay for first posts~

I think I’ll check this book out if I find it at the Book Fair later this month. It sounds interesting. o_o

Have you read Prozac Nation? It deals with some similar topics to this.
Lauren on August 6th, 2007 2:40 pm

I really want to but every time I go to a bookstore I look for a copy of Prozac Nation and they’re always out of stock. o_o
Chris on August 7th, 2007 9:35 am

A Long Way Down is a fascinating read. Nick Hornby is one of my favorite writers. You should also try reading How to Be Good. It’s great. I like his compilation of short stories by different authors too, Speaking with the Angel. That was the time i discovered Colin Firth (as in Mr. Darcy in Bridget Jones) was a writer. Quite surprising. If you liked Nick Hornby you’ll like David Sedaris and Jasper Fforde too. Look for their titles.

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