At least four times that I can recall in his book ‘Man Gone Down’, author Michael Thomas utters the words, “It is a strange thing to go through life as a social experiment.” The lead character in this story has a deep understanding of who he is and how society has stacked the deck against him. He is a quiet, observant protagonist who views life with an inner dialogue reserved for the reader. His voice is a staggering, wondrous poetry that speaks to those who know what it’s like to fight for survival in a world that with a dismissive shrug, treats the masses as superfluous and expandable.

The ‘man gone down’ is broke, out of work and separated from his wife and kids. There is something in the primal nature of (most) men, some innate need to be the bread winning husband and father. When all that is removed the emotional ricochet is murderously devastating. Now add to that all the prejudices awaiting a visible minority and a background laced with poverty, physical abuse and alcoholism. That is where our hero is coming from. Where he wishes to go from there is relayed in a seemingly impossible to-do list abruptly jotted down in a note pad.

This is the title of chapter one: The Loser. This is the opening line of the story, “I know I’m not doing well. I have an emotional relationship with a fish - Thomas Strawberry.” This man is damaged goods and on every page of this book the reader is waiting for the ‘snap’ to happen. It seems inevitable that some trigger is going to push our champion over the precipice into oblivion. He is waiting for it, he desires oblivion or at least he’s resigned himself to the fact that it is inescapable and yet he forges on.

Here’s one of several excerpts that explains the title to some extent, “I wonder if this is what it feels like to fall out of love - mirthless, but too spent to rage or lament it’s passing numb to old shames alone, watching the sun bleed and not having the vision drop you to your knees. My bride across the summer lawn - not even a memory, one thin image - the empty gesture of a desperate man who knows it but won’t feel himself going down.”
This book so captured my imagination that for the last ninety odd pages, from the chapter titled, ‘Evenings Empire,’ I could barely breath. I felt as though a house was sitting on my chest. I doubt this book will affect all readers this way but most will relate to a certain extent. Anyone who has known harsh, brutally unfair adversity in their life. Anyone who has attempted to obliterate their problem in a bottle. Anyone who has faced their demons and prevailed. Anyone who can relate to any or all these things will embrace this book.

As a playwright, this is the type of story that I would give my left nut to adapt to the stage or screen. I think that in the right hands it would make an incomparably moving and inspirational film. It would almost certainly have to be a Spike Lee joint. I could see Jamie Fox as the lead, James Spader as his yuppie friend, Samuel L Jackson as his buddy from the old neighbourhood, Morgan Freeman with a cameo as the University Prof and Charlize Theron as his wife. I’m just sayin…