A Long Way Down

The man who jumped has two effects on Martin and the others: “First, he made us realize that we weren’t capable of killing ourselves. And secondly, this information made us suicidal again” (235).Martin realizes that he had begun considering his eventual suicide as a way out that he could count on if things got bad enough. He knows that the man who jumped never could have been talked down off the roof to go look for Chas, so there must be something in the four of them that wants to keep living.

They meet the following afternoon at Starbucks. They are all depressed: “It had been perfectly clear that we no longer had much use for each other; now it was hard to imagine who else would be suitable company” (237). He tells the group that they have no real way out of their lives. He tells them about the article on suicide he had read the night before but had not gotten the chance to relate to them. The author wrote how the suicide crisis for each individual tends to last for 90 days. After that time period, a person’s perspective changes.