In four distinct and riveting first-person voices, Nick Hornby tells a story of four individuals confronting the limits of choice, circumstance and their own mortality. This is a tale of connections made and missed, punishing regrets and the grace of second chances. Intense, hilarious, provocative and moving, A LONG WAY DOWN is a novel about suicide that is, surprisingly, full of life.

The year is 2020, and not much has changed. Human beings are still killing each other over religion, and evidence of life on other planets, if exposed, would certainly rock some fundamentalist boats. So when Lucy Bergmann’s astrophysicist husband Thom tenderly hangs a computer memory stick storing irrefutable proof of extraterrestrial life around her neck, Lucy is both moved and nervous.