Long Way Down (Jason Reynolds)

Long Way Down
Jason Reynolds
Athenium/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books
Fiction, YA Chiller/Poetry
***** (Great)

DESCRIPTION: The night fifteen-year-old Will's brother Shawn is gunned down in the street, the boy knows just what to do with the grief tearing his heart out. There are Rules for this, taught to him by Shawn, who learned it from others: don't cry, don't snitch, and always take revenge. Will didn't see who pulled the trigger, but he's pretty sure he knows who, and he has the gun Shawn left behind in their shared room. Full of rage and fear and confusion, Will leaves his apartment and takes the elevator to the lobby, intent on following the Rules and exacting his revenge - only to find a dead uncle stepping aboard at the next floor, and another ghost on the one after... It's a long way down to the lobby, and even longer when the dead must have their say.

REVIEW: I listened to the audiobook (read by the author) at work, not quite sure what to expect from such a relatively short piece. The free-form verse tells a story of anger and fear and pain and a self-perpetuating cycle of ultimately pointless payback that destroys lives long after the original injustice (if indeed there was one) has been forgotten. Will has known pain since before he can remember, and known death on a personal level at least as long, as friends and family members have been claimed by the violence that poisons his world like smog. The only way he knows how to deal with grief is by following the Rules that led to the grief in the first place. The ghostly visitors show the scope of the horrors that have encompassed his life since childhood, horrors he never thinks to question until looking into the faces of death all around him. The nightmarish elevator ride has shades of Dickens, but only if all the ghosts were as grim as the Ghost of Christmas Future, with as little hope of salvation. Does Will understand what they're saying, by the end? Is it already too late for him by the time he steps into the elevator car with his brother's gun tucked into his waistband? Did he ever have a choice but to eventually join them, whether today or tomorrow or next year, as the Rules play out endlessly around him, claiming more lives that create more killers that claim more lives? The ending leaves Will's choice and fate unspecified, but there is no doubt that the visions have made him fundamentally reassess his world. It's a powerful, harrowing tale.
The audiobook I listened to included a brief interview with the author, wherein he describes the inspirations for the tale and mentions his own dislike of ebooks, where readers can change font sizes and such in ways that, to his mind, ruin the impact and flow of his verse in an unacceptable way. The ability to change font sizes and types is one of the benefits of ereader devices for people with visual impairments or other issues. For some reason, this broad-brush dismissal irked me subtly. Other than that, the interview (more of a monologue wherein he answered his own questions) was reasonably interesting, though, adding depth and background to the story.

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