A Long Way Down
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  • Published: 3 February 2022
  • ISBN: 9780241969939
  • Imprint: Penguin General UK
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 272
  • RRP: $22.99
Categories:

A Long Way Down

the international bestseller

Formats & editions
Paperback
3 Feb 2022
EBook
31 Jul 2006
Audiobook
6 Feb 2014
Paperback
29 Jul 2021
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‘Can I explain why I wanted to jump off the top of a tower block?’

For disgraced TV presenter Martin Sharp the answer’s pretty simple: he has, in his own words, ‘pissed his life away’. And on New Year’s Eve, he’s going to end it all … But not, as it happens, alone. Because first single-mum Maureen, then eighteen-year-old Jess and lastly American rock-god JJ turn up and crash Martin’s private party. They’ve stolen his idea – but brought their own reasons.

Yet it’s hard to jump when you’ve got an audience queuing impatiently behind you. A few heated words and some slices of cold pizza later and these four strangers are suddenly allies. But is their unlikely friendship a good enough reason to carry on living?
  • Published: 3 February 2022
  • ISBN: 9780241969939
  • Imprint: Penguin General UK
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 272
  • RRP: $22.99
Categories:

About the author

Nick Hornby

Nick Hornby was born in 1957. He is the author of five novels, High Fidelity, About a Boy, How To Be Good, A Long Way Down (shortlisted for the Whitbread Award) and Slam; three works of non-fiction, Fever Pitch (winner of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award), 31 Songs (shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award) and The Complete Polysyllabic Spree; and a Pocket Penguin book of short stories, Otherwise Pandemonium.

Nick Hornby lives and works in Highbury, north London.

Also by Nick Hornby

High Fidelity: Popular Penguins
Dickens and Prince
Just Like You
State of the Union
Funny Girl
Stuff I've Been Reading
Books, Movies, Rhythm, Blues
See all

Praise for A Long Way Down

Impossible to put down . . . enthralling

Ruth Rendell, Guardian

Extremely funny . . . and wise

Sunday Times

A page-turning plot and rich, funny characters with several big laughs on every page . . . Hornby's best yet

Literary Review

Hornby pins down the age in which we live with precision and comic brilliance

Guardian

Hugely enjoyable

Irish Times

Masterful . . . some of the finest writing, and some of the most outstanding characters I've ever had the pleasure of reading

Johnny Depp

Hornby's portrayal of four characters who accidentally meet on top of a tower block, all ready to jump to their death on New Year's Eve, manages to be sensitive and empathetic, but damn funny as well. My new Hornby favourite

Adam Phillips, Observer

Brilliant, smart and funny . . . a cello suite about how to go on living. It's hard to imagine a novel more darkly and sublimely devoted to life

Boston Globe

Generous and wise. Right from the opening pages, a smile played continually across my face

GQ
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