A Long Way Down

Jess Crichton is 18 and is the least stable character in the story. She went up to the roof on Toppers’ House because her boyfriend Chas had left her without an explanation. She had gone to the party downstairs hoping to find him, but then went up to jump when he wasn’t there. Jess is given to fits of anger, profanity, aggressive mocking—even towards people who are trying to be her friends—and grief. She sees herself as sick because she can’t understand why she does the things she does. In one passage, she describes her thinking process as requiring her to get violently angry and then to make a mistake. The only time she feels she can truly assess her feelings and what might be realis after the anger fades.

Jess is tormented by the loss of her sister, Jen. Jen was three years older than Jess and left when she was 18. Her car was found near a popular suicide spot, and although there are suggestions later in the story that she might have staged this tableau so that no one would look for her, her parents and Jess spend much of the book operating under the assumption that she killed herself. Meeting Maureen, Martin, and JJ is the first time Jess sees herself as part of a group because they are all as miserable as she is. As the story progresses, she finds herself trying to improve their lives, as seen in the intervention she stages with their loved ones. At the end of the story, Jess believes she has learned to see things as they are, and she is hopeful for what comes next. 

JJ is 26 and is the only American in the group. His motivation for suicide was the loss of his girlfriend, Lizzie, and the breakup of his band—which he was responsible for instigating. The idea he will never make music again torments him, and he does not believe that a life without music is worth living. JJ is conflicted when he meets the other three characters. Their lives seem so much worse than his that he feels ashamed he wanted to kill himself over so much less than what they were dealing with. As the novel progresses, JJ contemplates how any future for himself will involve menial jobs that make him want to die, so he can’t understand why he doesn’t just take the step sooner and end his life.

During the intervention that Jess stages, he sees Eddie and Lizzie again for the first time since the band broke up. Lizzie tells him that she only left him because he ended the band and that she knew he would be miserable without music—which would then make her miserable. They don’t reconcile or get back together, but after talking to them, JJ realizes he can make music again: the other three characters in the suicide group have become his current band. When his part of the story concludes, he is playing music for money in the streets, but his actions are a step towards what he considers a life worth living.