Long Way Down

Fifteen-year-old Will, immobilized with grief when his older brother Shawn is shot and killed, slowly comes to mull The Rules in his head. There are three: don't cry, don't snitch, and "if someone you love / gets killed, / find the person / who killed / them and / kill them." So Will locates Shawn's gun, leaves his family's eighth-floor apartment, and--well, here is where this intense verse novel becomes a gripping drama, as on each floor of the descending elevator Will is joined by yet another victim or perpetrator in the chain of violence that took his brother's life. Shawn's best friend Buck gets into the elevator on seven; Dani, Will's friend from childhood, gets in on six; Will and Shawn's uncle Mark gets in on five, in a cloud of cigarette smoke. And so it goes, each stop of the elevator adding to the chorus of ghosts (including Will and Shawn's father), each one with his or her perspective on The Rules. The poetry is stark, fluently using line breaks and page-turns for dramatic effect; the last of these reveals the best closing line of a novel this season. Read alone (though best aloud), the novel is a high-stakes moral thriller; it's also a perfect if daring choice for readers' theater. roger Sutton