LoveReading Says
Shortlisted for the Whitbread Novel Award. Narrated in turns by Martin, Maureen, Jess and JJ, four strangers with absolutely nothing in common - save where they end up that night - Nick Hornby’s A Long Way Down is a funny, sad and deeply moving new novel which 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.
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A Long Way Down Synopsis
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 family, the pad, the great career – and wasted it away. Killing himself is Martin’s logical response to an unliveable 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 his loving mum can’t cope any more.
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 – who’s weighed 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.
About This Edition
ISBN: |
9780241968895 |
Publication date: |
6th February 2014 |
Author: |
Nick Hornby |
Publisher: |
Penguin Books Ltd |
Format: |
Paperback |
Pagination: |
272 pages |
Primary Genre |
Modern and Contemporary Fiction
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Other Genres: |
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Recommendations: |
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About Nick Hornby
Nick Hornby was born in 1957, and is the author of Fever Pitch, High Fidelity, About a Boy and How to be Good. He also edited the collection of short stories Speaking With the Angel. He is the pop music critic for the New Yorker. In 1999, he was awarded the E.M.Forster award by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He lives and works in Highbury, North London.
More About Nick Hornby