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In a way, that’s what happens in Nick Hornby’s new novel A Long Way Down. Hornby conjures a story of four very different people, in very different times of their lives, who happen to meet one New Year’s Eve at the top of the fictional Topper’s House, a London building with the reputation of being a suicide’s destination. It is this chance meeting that stops the four from going through with their plans.
There is forty-something Martin, disgraced morning talk show host, ex-con, who had gone to jail for having sex with a minor; Maureen, middle-aged single mother, with a vegetable for a son and I don’t mean a turnip; Jess, eighteen, heartbroken, who wonders why her ex-boyfriend won’t explain to her why they broke up; and JJ, American, wanna-be rock star, condemned to a life of delivering pizza.
Except for Martin, I thought about how flimsy some of the others’ reasons were for ending their lives. But Hornby’s ear for dialogue, his talent for moving the story forward, enabled me to get over the initial skepticism and get into the story.
As it turns out, things run much deeper. As we get to know the characters and their lives, we find that there are many incidents that propelled these people towards that fateful New Year’s Eve. It was as if events have aligned in such a manner that led them down this path.
I am reminded of an article from The New Yorker which told about a guy in his thirties, who wrote a suicide note and left it on his bureau. It said, ‘I’m going to walk to the Golden Gate Bridge. If one person smiles at me on the way, I will not jump.’
He jumped off the bridge.
In A Long Way Down, the meeting of the four was an equivalent of that smile. It was the stay of execution, so to speak. They make a pact to get back together at the same place on Valentine’s Day to see if they are still in the same place. Then, because of Martin’s fame as an ex-talk show host, the tabloids got a hold of their story and their lives become entangled.
I had to assume that these people were really serious about committing suicide otherwise the story would sorta fall apart. I’m not sure Nick Hornby really convinced me because the characters are so chatty, so full of life that it’s hard to imagine them offing themselves. But then again, I’ve read about people who seemed to have everything going for them, go off and kill themselves, leaving friends and relatives mystified on what had happened.
Article comments
1 - Phillip Winn
This post is simply amazing. Wow.
The Hornby novel sounds great. How can it lose with such a setup? Warned that it doesn't reacht he heights of High Fidelity, I'm still going to check it out.
Thanks for this.
2 - No Milk
Thanks Phillip. I did a He said, She said sorta thing on my blog. You can check out what She said.
3 - Victor Plenty
Interesting contrasts emerge from your writing, No Milk. You speak with some sensitivity and compassion about the pressures and dangers of being different, when being different means being gay.
And yet, as part of the "humor" in your piece, you employ vicious backhanded insults against two separate public figures who happen to be female, heavy, and black.
Of course I know you didn't intend any racism. Nobody sane ever intends any racism anymore. Even most of the very few people who still secretly believe in racism are embarrassed to admit it in public.
I'm old enough to remember when many white people still told thoughtless and vicious jokes about black racial stereotypes, without any embarrassment, nor any idea they might be hurting anyone. Those days are gone now in most communities, and good riddance to them.
But another type of thoughtless humor has slithered into the place of those old racist jokes. For some reason there is still no level of ruthless cruelty too low for a "humorist" to use in jokes that attack fat people. Fat women in particular are often assumed to have no human feelings deserving any consideration whatsoever.
I'm trying to remain as calm as possible while pointing this out to you, rather than going into full-bore counterattack mode. I'm sure you did not intend any of your remarks to become yet another cause of needless pain in anyone's life.
Yet this unintended contradiction does tend to undermine what is otherwise an admirably humane and thoughtful piece of writing.
4 - Roscoe
wonderful piece, funny as hell
5 - No Milk
Victor, thanks for your comments. I appreciate them. It did make me think about whether I was being thoughtless, and I do care about that. Humor should really be well thought out, and I didn't want to get sloppy.
I just wanted to note that when I mentioned both Oprah and Star Jones, it is their celebrity I was mocking, not their race or weight. In fact, I didn't even think about their race until you mentioned it. It could have been Rosie O'Donnell in this post instead of Oprah, but she hasn't been in the news lately and I'm sure she really wishes she were so I can mock her.
About Star Jones specifically, I also didn't mention anything about how fat she was, because that wasn't the point of the line "I think about suffocating under Star Jones and an avalanche of Payless shoes."
If I wanted to point out how fat she was, then I wouldn't have used the shoes at all. In fact, I wouldn't use Star Jones, I would use someone decidedly, well, fat, like maybe Chris Farley, because he's a man and he's admitted that he's fat and he's dead. Sarcasm here, sorry, but if I were thinking about fat people, I would concentrate on the most graphic image I can think of, and you know what? Star Jones wouldn't even make the cut.
It was the one-two punch of the low rent image shoes and the low rent celebrity that Star Jones represents that I thought particularly humorous. It does make the connotation that she's not reed thin, but I take no blame for that, it just works that way. I'd like to think that I am multi-faceted and that I think in many different levels, but really, I am just very shallow.
Oh, and I didn't pick Rosie O'Donnell to represent me here because she is perceived to be fat, white, irish, female or queer. I picked her because she wears some really tacky blazers, just so you're clear on my intentions.
I am reminded of the show Family Guy where every time a gay person is mentioned, it is in the context of AIDS, as if all gay people had AIDS or something. They even had a 5-minute song about a person having AIDS. Dang, it was FUNNY. I felt really bad for thinking it was funny, but it was. In fact, I wasn't sure I wasn't really just offended.
But that's what humor is. Laughter is a reaction we get from being uncomfortable, or from some truth. And I am not beyond using stereotypes in humor, there is some truth in them. The truth is funny, yo.
6 - Scott Butki
That is one hell of a review.
Excellent.
I love Hornby but I've heard this is one of his weaker works.