THE SUNDAY REVIEW | LONG WAY DOWN – JASON REYNOLDS & DANICA NOVGORODOFF

I don’t know how, but somehow I managed to pick up several graphic novels (after not having read any for years) that were just so impressive, poignant and important. This was, obviously, one of those books.

This is the graphic novel version of a novel by the same name written by Jason Reynolds. It’s another one that has a really simple premise and story. Will, a young Black teenager who lives in an underprivileged area, sees his older brother shot in a drive-by. He goes home, finds the gun his brother had hidden in his room, leaves his crying mother and boards an elevator to go back out to find the person who was responsible for his brother’s death.

But on the way down the elevator stops several times, and each time it stops a ghost boards and talks to him about their experiences, how they died, and what he might not have known about their own tragic end. In this way we see not just the back and forth violence that’s featured in movies and simplified into inevitability, but the complex social, economic, racial, and gender systems that feed into this cyclical type of violence.

This book is so, so incredibly emotional. I was sobbing when I reached the end of it. It so simply lays out all the factors that led this young man to be on an elevator with a gun. Why he feels like he has no choice but to avenge his brother’s death. What will happen – to him and to all the other domino lives on down the line –  if he does. How insular his community feels and how much that amplifies the social pressures he feels. The gender role models he has seen, and how their masculinity has impacted his ability to deal with his emotions. And on and on. There is so much important information in this one small book that will change forever what you think and feel when you watch a movie with gangs shooting each other back and forth in retaliation.

The entire story takes place in the space of an elevator ride, but what is said and decided in the space of that ride will potentially set the course of Will’s future definitively based on whether he gets off the elevator when it hits the lobby or not. This one elevator ride could take or save a life – and probably more lives down the road. It’s a brilliant concept, and one that works so perfectly for the story it is telling.

I can’t recommend this book enough. It’s another I want everyone to read. I want everyone to see what goes into these cycles of violence, why they’re so hard to break out of, and why the view of this one situation is completely different depending on whether you’re looking at it from outside or inside. One of the most vital books I’ve read this year, and also one of the most emotional reading experience I had in the past year. Highly, highly recommend that you pick it up (or the novel if you prefer).

Jason Reynolds’s Newbery Honor, Printz Honor, and Coretta Scott King Honor–winning, #1 New York Times bestselling novel Long Way Down is now a gripping, galvanizing graphic novel, with haunting artwork by Danica Novgorodoff.

Will’s older brother, Shawn, has been shot.
Dead.
Will feels a sadness so great, he can’t explain it. But in his neighborhood, there are THE RULES:

No. 1: Crying.
Don’t.
No matter what.

No. 2: Snitching
Don’t.
No matter what.

No. 3: Revenge
Do.
No matter what.

But bullets miss. You can get the wrong guy. And there’s always someone else who knows to follow the rules… – Goodreads

ff