William Holloman is ready to exact vengeance on the person who murdered his older brother, Shawn. The weight of so many children-more specifically, so many black and brown children-jumping on this soiled American mattress, poverty, illiteracy, and prejudice serving as the coils. The weight of dehumanization, of being stripped of personhood because of instinctual moments and feelings, unfettered. The weight of fear, and the feeling of insignificance. The weight of community codes, family dynamic, tradition. Not just the weight of gun violence, but the weight of anger bearing down on fragile backs. Long Way Down is meant to help us all recognize the weight of it. knew his death had changed chemically, and that could do, perhaps, what never knew could do before. Speaking of the moment, he said he and his friends felt 'an anger, a pain, like a cancer metastasizing by the second, spreading around and through. In 2003 when Reynolds was 19, he learned that a friend had been murdered.

Reynolds held the idea for Long Way Down for years before finally writing it. The book was longlisted for the National Book Award and was named a Printz Honor Book, Coretta Scott King Honor Book, and Newbery Medal Honor Book, alongside other awards and positive reviews.Ī graphic novel edition of the book, illustrated by Danica Novgorodoff, was published October 13, 2020. Long Way Down is a young adult novel in verse by Jason Reynolds, published October 24, 2017, by Atheneum Books. Printz Honor Book, Coretta Scott King author award, Newbery Honor

Long way down book cover