Coming Down

A story of addiction, drug dealing and sky-diving. At its vertiginous centre one man’s commitment to making money and living life to excess. An unprincipled hero with huge appetites for women, designer clothes and drugs, guided by a criminal code that allows him free rein to exploit the real and virtual networks of the global era.

Coming Down is a novel about falling - falling in love, falling from grace, falling foul, falling apart, falling free. A story of addiction, drug dealing and sky-diving. At its vertiginous centre one man’s commitment to making money and living life to excess. An unprincipled hero with huge appetites for women, designer clothes and drugs, guided by a criminal code that allows him free rein to exploit the real and virtual networks of the global era.

The exhilarating drama of a high altitude free fall over the desert coastline of southern California provides the narrative structure for Coming Down. Each chapter brings the hero, X, closer to the earth. As he hurtles downwards his thoughts and feelings about falling provide the cement that binds the key events in his life into a revelatory whole that opens the way to understanding why he is, where he is, plunging towards the Pacific Ocean at terminal velocity. 

Falling is central to Coming Down and each chapter is “book-ended” with startling biblical, literary, scientific, and journalistic extracts, both serious and humorous, about falling. Some are of only tangential relevance to the plot, others of vital importance.