Long Way Down

Long Way Down is a novel in verse by the American writer Jason Reynolds, published on 24 October 2017 by Atheneum Books. It was longlisted for the National Book Award and named a Printz Honor Book, a Coretta Scott King Honor Book and a Newbery Medal Honor Book.

Will's older brother Shawn has been shot dead, and the code that governs their neighbourhood is simple and absolute: no crying, no snitching, no revenge. Will takes the gun his brother left behind and gets into the lift in his building, meaning to use it on the man he is sure is responsible. He has seven floors to ride, and at every one of them the doors open on somebody who should not be standing there, so that the descent turns into a conversation with the dead about what he is carrying and why.

The whole novel happens inside that short ride, and Reynolds holds the reader there in short poems that keep the streets, the family and the code in view. He has said that the book grew out of the murder of a friend when he was nineteen and out of what that anger did to the people around him. A graphic novel edition illustrated by Danica Novgorodoff followed in 2020.