Nick Hornby is a thoughtful writer, whose books give the strong impression of long consideration, and the subject of this new one has been on his mind, evidently, in very specific terms for the best part of a decade. In About a Boy (1998), we learn from Marcus that ‘Will had told him to watch out for his mum on New Year’s Eve, and though he didn’t explain why, Marcus could guess: a lot of people who weren’t happy killed themselves then.’

This is really a long expansion of that evidently haunting idea, starting with a scene which hovers on the edge of the grotesque. On New Year’s Eve, a man makes his way up to the top of a north London block of flats, well known for attracting suicides, and irreverently termed ‘Topper’s House’. He is prepared with a step-ladder and wire-cutters to get through the barriers put up by the authorities. Before he can commit suicide, however, someone else arrives: a middle-aged woman, also intent on the same end. ‘I only wanted to ask him if he was going to be long.’

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