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.
