The Good Luck of Right Now! by Matthew Quick

The Good Luck of Right Now!
by Matthew Quick

The last book I read by Matthew Quick (also probably more famous for his book 'The Silver Linings Playbook' which was made into an award-winning film) was the young adult novel Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock, which I think I actually preferred to this adult novel 'The Good Luck of Right Now!'. This book is very sad in a poignant, tragic way.

The story is about 39-yr-old Bartholomew Neil, who has a learning difficulty. He still lives with his mum, that is until she dies from cancer, and suddenly Bartholomew has to survive in a world of the unknown. He and his mother were always very religious and attended Mass every week. They had become very close to Father McNamee, who decides to move in with Bartholomew to take care of him. He organises a counsellor, Wendy, for Bartholomew, who also refers him to group therapy with another man, Max, who suffers from tourettes. It just so happens that Max's sister, Elizabeth, is a young girl that Bartholomew has taken a liking to in the local library, but she also has had a troubled past and is in need of help.

The four of them - Bartholomew, Father McNamee, Max and Elizabeth - decide to take a trip to Canada. Father McNamee wants to introduce Bartholomew to his biological father, whom Bartholomew thought had been killed by the Ku Klux Klan when he was little. And Max wants to visit Cat Parliament (Max has been suffering from grief since the loss of his cat Alice). The trip turns out to be a life-changing experience for all of them, but in different ways.

The chapters are set out as letters to Richard Gere, as Bartholomew's mum was a big fan of his and began to call Bartholomew 'Richard' towards the end of her life which he pretended was a game. After her death, Bartholomew hears Richard's voice giving him advice, so uses Richard as a sort of counsellor to describe all his fears and worries to. It turns out that Richard will mean more to Bartholomew than he can ever imagine.

Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock by Matthew Quick

Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock
by Matthew Quick

Leonard is a troubled soul. His parents are no longer together - his ex-rock star alcoholic father is no longer in the picture, and his fashion designer mother spends most of her time away from home with her French boyfriend. It is his 18th birthday, but nobody remembers. He is bullied at school by Asher Beale, one-time best friend until that dreadful life-changing incident. He is unhappy, and he sees no happiness in the future for himself either, so he makes the decision to take himself out of this world and into another, happier place - and take Asher Beale with him. And that's where his grandfather's P-38 gun that was used to kill a Nazi officer in World War II, comes into the picture. It is up to his 3 friends in the world - Herr Silverman his history and German teacher; Walt his Humphrey Bogart film loving neighbour; Lauren the beautiful Christian - to convince him that life is worth living. But will it be enough?

This is understandably a very sad story. Poor Leonard, even though he is highly intelligent, is seen as a weirdo by his classmates, so when he starts to spiral downwards no-one seems to notice because they think he is strange anyway. The school guidance counsellor remarks on his behaviour but when he laughs it off, so does she. You end up screaming at some of the characters to give him the help he needs, stop the inevitable from happening. Thankfully Herr Silverman is a lot more astute and aware and you hope you can rely on him to pull Leonard out of his suicidal hole.

There were a few annoying things in the story, the first being footnotes. I'm not a big fan of these, they seem to tear you away from the moment and when the story is so emotionally heavy, it takes a while to get back into it. The second is the sudden introduction of letters from the future. You wonder what on earth it is about, until it is explained a little further into the book. The third is the ending - I often seem disappointed by endings, but this one really annoys. See what you think yourselves.

Other than that, a really enjoyable, thoughtful, heartbreaking story about a taboo subject.