Book 36: A Long Way Down, by Nick Hornby

I should probably start this by saying that I'm a huge Hornby fan and was eagerly anticipating this book as one of the most intriguing of the year. By chance, it came out exactly the same week as Bruce Campbell's new novel - and I have to say it was a good week indeed. Hornby, who has also written such terrific stuff as High Fidelity and About a Boy, centers this novel around four very different individuals who meet under unusual circumstances on New Year's Eve. By unusual, I mean that they have all gone to the top of the same building with the intention of committing suicide. It doesn't sound like a very happy concept for a book, does it? Nonetheless, it's an upbeat story about how people who don't necessarily like each other all that much can help each other in extraordinary conditions. Hornby switches from character to character, telling each of their stories in first person. It's a smart way of emphasizing the very different personalities of each distinct individual. It's a substantial improvement over his last fiction work, How to Be Good, which frankly left me a little hollow. I highly recommend this book and also his previous one, The Polysyllabic Spree, a compilation of some of his columns from The Believer magazine.