The Good Luck of Right Now
Matthew Quick
2014, 284 pages
Fiction
If Matthew Quick’s Silver Linings Playbook is about “love, madness, and Kenny G.,” his new book, The Good Luck of Right Now, is about love, difference, and Richard Gere. Quick has a knack for getting inside the lives of people most of us don’t try to know. In this case, 38-year-old Bartholomew, who’s always lived with his recently deceased mom. His grief counselor, Wendy, who needs help herself. Father McNamee, who defrocks himself and moves in with Bartholomew. Max, a movie ticket-taker, who is mourning his cat Alice and fears alien abduction. And Elizabeth, Max’s sister, who Bartholomew thinks of as The Girlbrarian.
Bartholomew narrates the book through letters to Richard Gere. After his mother’s death, he found a form letter in her dresser from Gere about Tibet. He guesses this is why she called him Richard as her cancer worsened. In his letters, Bartholomew describes the “little angry man” inside who calls him moron, retard, idiot. He’s never held a job, had a friend or gone on a date.
But Bartholomew spends a lot of time at his library, and he tells Gere what he’s learned. He also explains his mother’s theory of “the good luck of right now.” It’s a fun, cinematic, feel-good read, but it’s not light. Quick addresses how our society deals with difference, and what family is. And he challenges readers to see the Barthlomews, Wendys, Maxes, Elizabeths, and Father McNamees in their lives.
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