The Good Luck of Right Now Author: | Language: English | ISBN:
B00HDL94UG | Format: PDF
The Good Luck of Right Now Description
Call it fate...
Call it synchronicity...
Call it an act of God...
Call it...The Good Luck of Right Now.
For 38 years, Bartholomew Neil has lived with his mother. When she gets sick and dies, he has no idea how to be on his own. His redheaded grief counselor, Wendy, says he needs to find his flock and leave the nest. But how does a man whose whole life has been grounded in his mom, Saturday Mass, and the library learn how to fly?
Bartholomew thinks he's found a clue when he discovers a "Free Tibet" letter from Richard Gere hidden in his mother's underwear drawer. In her final days, Mom called him Richard - there must be a cosmic connection. Believing that the actor is meant to help him, Bartholomew awkwardly starts his new life by writing Richard Gere a series of letters. Jung and the Dalai Lama, philosophy and faith, alien abduction and cat telepathy, the Catholic Church and the mystery of women, are all explored in his soul-baring epistles. But mostly the letters reveal one man's heartbreakingly earnest attempt to assemble a family of his own.
A struggling priest; a "Girlbrarian"; her feline-loving, foul-mouthed brother; and the spirit of Richard Gere join the quest to help Bartholomew. In a rented Ford Focus, they travel to Canada to see the Cat Parliament and find Bartholomew's biological father...and discover so much more.
- Audible Audio Edition
- Listening Length: 7 hours and 51 minutes
- Program Type: Audiobook
- Version: Unabridged
- Publisher: Harper Audio
- Audible.com Release Date: February 11, 2014
- Whispersync for Voice: Ready
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00HDL94UG
With "The Silver Linings Playbook," author Matthew Quick took troubled characters and treated them with immeasurable compassion, respect, and humor. Despite enormous obstacles, the novel's central protagonist was possessed of an unwavering hope and a unique world view. This balance of the eccentric with the mundane, of an infused sadness with a laugh-out-loud boisterousness, showcased a book that was deceptively simple yet packed a surprisingly powerful punch. With the Oscar winning film adaptation of that novel having raised Quick's popular profile, I'm sure that his other endeavors are being more closely scrutinized. And his newest tale, "The Good Luck of Right Now," covers some of the same themes as its famous predecessor. Told through the eyes of Bartholomew Neil, the story relies on a narrator that is often unaware of the big picture that surrounds him. At times he can be frustratingly obtuse, at others charmingly clueless. Having been sheltered from life, as well as saddled with certain mental and physical limitations, Bartholomew is left to rebuild his world after his mother passes and his cozy existence of co-dependence comes to an end. At first, he may not seem up to the task. But don't count Bartholomew out just yet!
In an unusual narrative device, the book is structured as a series of letters to Richard Gere. Yes, that Richard Gere. An isolated Bartholomew turns to Gere because he was the favorite actor of his recently deceased mother. In her waning days, she even refers to her son as Richard and he draws strength and confidence by assuming some of the traits of this alter ego. Even as I write this sentence, I know that sounds incredibly precious and false and yet Quick made me believe it. Not only believe it, I suppose, but care.
I feel like I might be a bit of a minority in my opinion of this book, particularly since Matthew Quick is such a "hot" author since Silver Linings went massive. But anyway, I have to say I'm not overly impressed, though this is the first book I've actually read by him. The Good Luck of Right Now isn't really a bad book, it's just not the sort of thing that really caught my attention all the way through even though I did finish it in about a day. It's the type of book that's not super heavy on throwing ideas at you but rather building the background (beginning), giving you the idea (middle), and then putting it into some sort of action (end). The Good Luck of Right Now itself is the actual idea Quick explores and it's beautifully described in what is about the best chapter of the book in my opinion. Honestly, it was such a good explanation even though I wouldn't necessarily recommend the book, I'd recommend reading just that chapter.
We meet Bartholomew Neil who is learning to cope without his mother who has recently died of brain cancer (no real spoilers, promise. It's in the first five or so pages of the book). To do so he starts writing letters to Richard Gere and whether or not the actor is being sent them is another question but is not inherently important to the story. What is important is that we see how Bartholomew goes about the process of coping with his grief and the people that become his flock including a somewhat temperamental priest, a grief counselor, a library volunteer and her questionably sane brother. An intriguing group of characters to be sure. This is a book about beginnings and endings and all the struggles in between. And each character definitely has struggles aplenty, some more important to the story than others.
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