I just finished the audiobook version of Nick Hornby’s A Long Way Down, and it’s marvelous. I read and loved High Fidelity a while back (yes, the one that the movie was based on) and was tickled to finally see an unabridged version of one of his books on Audible. (Audio abridgements are evil, in case you’ve never heard one of my tirades on the subject.)
The book deals with four very dissimilar individuals who climb a tall building on New Year’s Eve with the intent of jumping off it. They don’t. It’s told from their four perspectives (and the audiobook is read by four different narrators, which helps lend realism to it).
I’ve read a couple of reviews on the subject and all agree that while it’s a book ostensibly about suicide, it’s more about life and living than it might appear on first blush. Hornby’s characters are real — likable at times, thoroughly annoying at others, always vividly drawn — and engaging.
Makes me want to pick up another of his books, which (drat the man) means going to print for the moment for the earlier-mentioned reason of abridgments. (The humanity!)
