text: his darkly comic trip -- shared by a deviant cast of characters , including his terminally bored , part-time lover sookie , his godfater 's trophy mistress rachel , and smack-dealing performance artists russel -- veers from bizarre to tragic in igby 's ultimately noble attempt to keep himself from `` going down . `` igby goes down is a personal tale about a 17 year old misfit boy who copes with his mother 's cancer and his father 's insanity by pursuing relationships with older women .