LONG WAY DOWN tells the story of fifteen-year-old Will, whose brother Shawn has just been shot. The sadness feels like a tooth, “somewhere in the back,/ one of the big/ important ones,” has been ripped out and now there’s a “new empty space,/ where you know/ a tooth is supposed to be/ but ain’t no more.” After all the screaming, and the sirens, and the questions, Will knows that it’s up to him to follow The Rules: no crying, no snitching, and, finally, “[i]f someone you love/ gets killed/ find the person/ who killed/ them and/ kill them.” Will finds his brother’s gun, and gets on the elevator to look for the kid he’s sure is responsible for his brother’s death. But on his way down to the lobby, Will is joined by some very important ghosts who make him question everything he thinks he knows.
I think the form of the novel is pretty brilliant. Telling it in free-verse and, for the most part, during a one minute elevator ride allows the author to cut straight to the heart of his story. The riders who join Will form a chain of violence, and readers will feel all the pain, panic, and despair that drive him to believe he must follow the same Rules that got these ghosts from his past killed. The ambiguous finish hints at a possible end to the seemingly inevitable cycle of violence. Hope is good.
--Lynn
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