Suicide stories

Summary courtesy of Publisher's Weekly: The story opens in London on New Year's Eve, when four desperate people—Martin, a publicly disgraced TV personality; Maureen, a middle-aged woman with no life beyond caring for her severely disabled adult son; Jess, the unstable, punked-out daughter of a junior government minister; and JJ, an American rocker whose music career has just ended with a whimper—meet on the roof of a building known as Toppers' House, where they have all come to commit suicide. Bonded by their shared misery, the unlikely quartet spends the night together, telling their stories, getting on each others' nerves even as they save each others' lives. They part the following morning, aware of having formed a peculiar sort of gang.

But that's just the first part of the story. Other "adventures" follow this dysfunctional quartet, from a brief brush with tabloid fame, to a spur-of-the-moment vacation, to new loves and new job opportunities and, finally, to new outlooks on life.

Some parts which are funny, like when JJ tells everyone that he is dying of a disease because he feels that his real reason for committing suicide is the lamest of them all. Some parts are downright sad, especially when we read about Maureen's life (or lack of it). But most parts just make you think—about life, about living, and about ending it—without the author coming off as pedantic. It's nice to read a story on suicide that isn't so dark.... but at the same time not too trivialized as well. Get what I mean?

I read on the Internet that Johnny Depp will be producing the film version of this book. They certainly have a long way to go to do justice to the characters of A Long Way Down.