Suicide Hotspot: “A Long Way Down”

A Hornby’s novel, published in 2005.

On the night of the 31th December four people, apparently with nothing in common, find themselves involved in a strange and unusual adventure. They met for the first time on the top of “The House of Suicide”, a skyscraper in London, where they went up with the intention of committing suicide. The protagonists are: Maureen, a lonely woman taking care of a seriously disabled son named Matt; Martin, a journalist who spent a period in jail after having a sexual intercourse with a 15 years old girl, and, after this fact, lost his family, friends and job; Jess, a problematic adolescent girl, with a tragic history in her past and JJ, an American pizza-boy, who was a musician in his country, but his band dissolved and he broke up with his girlfriend. All these people have different tragic past stories and live in difficult conditions, but, when they start talking on the roof of the skyscraper and sharing their problems, they decide not to commit suicide in that moment. They start a strange friendship, and, in an unusual way, they help each other, talking with honesty, frankness and true empathy. They start to meet periodically, and everytime they postpone the decision about suicide, sharing and comparing their life problems. On the 14th February they decide to go up on the skyscraper “House of suicide”, where they find a man. They try to talk to him, but he commits suicide in front of their eyes. After that, they understand they don’t really want to end their life, and, likewise, they need to stay together, and through their particular friendship, they start to look in a different way to their life and start giving themselves a chance. They go on with a new point of view: although life is not always beautiful and easy, they try to face it step by step, and continue postponing the decision of suicide, never saying “I’ll never do that”, but just waiting for taking this decision, and, in this way, they continue with their life and friendship.