Jumping the Nail

Jumping the Nail is a 1991 young adult novel by Northern Ireland-born writer Eve Bunting. Bunting has authored more than 250 books, primarily, but not solely, for children and young adults, and was listed as one of the Educational Paperback Association's top 100 authors. Jumping the Nail is a bildungsroman about a young woman named Dru, who faces an unusual situation: a ninety-foot ocean-side cliff called the Nail that several of her friends have decided to jump for thrills.

Dru, the high-achieving daughter of middle-class parents, lives in La Paloma, California. Dru's family doesn't own but only rents their home, and she often feels self-conscious of her family's comparative lack of wealth. Nonetheless, she flourishes in high school, graduating with a scholarship to Northwestern University. Once she starts dating Mike, who is popular, attractive, and quite rich, she suddenly finds herself thrust into a glittering new social circle of wealthy and fashionable upper-class kids who had never before really paid her any attention. This changes everything for her.

Before long, Dru learns that Mike's charismatic and popular, but rather insensitive friend Scooter plans to jump the Nail, a tall seaside cliff that no one has jumped for ten years. No one has jumped the Nail in so long because the last person who did hit the rocks below and, although she survived, ended up in a wheelchair. Dru and Mike go to the cliff to watch Scooter's jump; only then do they learn that Scooter has convinced his mentally ill girlfriend, Elisa, to jump with him. Dru knows that Elisa struggles with depression; because of this, Dru worries whether Elisa is in the right frame of mind for something like jumping the Nail. Dru suspects she is not. Dru and Mike do their best to dissuade Scooter and Elisa from jumping – but fail. Impelled by Scooter's conviction, they jump anyway.



Luckily, neither is physically harmed by the jump, but when they emerge from the water, something is clearly wrong with Elisa, who refuses to speak. She seems to be in shock. Dru stays with Elisa at her house, and Elisa eventually recovers from her shock enough to speak. She describes what she saw under the water: a drowned girl in a car. The girl, she says, asked Elisa to stay with her underwater. Elisa's condition deteriorates. Finally, Scooter comes over. He wants to go to a party and forces Elisa to come with him. Elisa clearly does not want to go, but in the end, acquiesces.

Despite Elisa's reaction to the jump, her jump with Scooter starts a trend among other young thrill-seekers in their circle. Other people start discussing jumping, including twin brothers Grant and Tom, who decide they are going to jump the Nail to try to impress Tom's girlfriend, Diane. They plan their jump for nighttime, and after the jump, Tom is injured. He ends up having to get stitches in his head as a result of his injuries. Dru and Mike, afraid of where the jumping trend is headed, resolve to tell the police about it. However, they do not immediately do so.

Dru and Mike's relationship progresses, to the point that Mike asks Dru to come to live with him in California. Surprisingly, Dru's mother supports the idea: she knows how wealthy Mike's family is, and feels that he would be able to do a good job providing for Dru. She encourages Dru to stay with him in California. However, that would mean Dru would have to give up her scholarship at Northwestern University (located in Illinois). She is torn over the decision: her boyfriend or her education. It seems she cannot have both.



Meanwhile, Elisa has gone missing, scaring everyone. Dru and Mike go out looking for her and find, to their horror, a set of tire tracks leading off the cliff. They alert the authorities, and it turns out that Elisa did indeed drive off the Nail. Divers are sent to retrieve her body, but they cannot remove it from the car – Elisa has gone to be with the drowned girl in her vision (who was, ultimately, perhaps merely a projection of her own depression and unhappiness in her relationship). Elisa's death affects Dru dramatically. After much consideration, she decides that, although she loves Mike, she simply cannot give up her education for him. She will go to Northwestern University in the fall after all. She tells Mike that she loves him, however, and assures him that she isn't leaving him for good. She often finds herself thinking of Elisa, whose life she feels ended far too soon.

Bunting's Jumping the Nail is an interesting and rare portrait of the recklessness of adolescence that doesn't attribute their poor decisions to substance abuse or difficult upbringings. It explores how the often-dangerous fads that spread among teens are largely rooted in their desire to impress their peers. It also, more traditionally, depicts Dru's successful coming of age as a direct response to tragedy and loss (in this case, of her friend Elisa). Finally, it deals explicitly with the issue of depression and how the mentally ill can be exploited by others.