September 5, 2022
A survivor of a mass shooting confronts his grief in this illuminating epistolary novel from Quick (The Silver Linings Playbook). In small-town Majestic, Penn., high school counselor Lucas Goodgame wrestles with the loss of his wife, Darcy, through a series of letters to his Jungian analyst, Karl Johnson. Darcy, along with Karl’s wife and 15 others, were murdered in a theater during a screening of a “classic Christmas movie.” (The allusion appears to be It’s a Wonderful Life—Lucas details how Darcy visits him every night as a winged angel.) When the shooter’s 18-year-old brother, Eli, starts camping out in Lucas’s back yard, Darcy’s angel assures him, “That boy is the way forward.” Lucas decides to mentor Eli, and with the help of the filmmaker-theater owners, the pair collaborate on a monster movie to help Eli work through his demons. The effort helps Lucas as much as it does Eli, giving Lucas the structure he’d been missing from the sessions with Karl, which stopped for reasons that only become clear later in the narrative. Quick adds credible details of moviemaking and dynamic secondary characters to a crackling narrative, which builds to an excruciatingly honest disclosure. The author’s fans will love this.
March 1, 2023
Best-selling author Quick (The Silver Linings Playbook) returns with another novel that compassionately addresses mental health and healing. Lucas Goodgame is trying to work through his grief by writing letters to his Jungian analyst, Karl, though Karl doesn't answer. Lucas's hometown theater, the Majestic, was the target of a mass shooting that killed his wife and 16 others. Although he was the person who stopped the shooter, Lucas still feels lacking and wonders if he could have done more. His grip on reality seems to be loosening, and he is haunted by visions of his wife, who visits him nightly in the form of an angel. When Eli, the younger brother of the shooter, who is shunned by the community, camps out in his backyard, Lucas finally finds a reason to move forward. By working together and creating a monster movie, they hope not to heal just themselves but the town as well. Passionately narrated by Luke Kirby, this tale of hope, loss, and grief is extraordinarily moving. VERDICT Despite dealing with many tragedies (PTSD, trauma, suicide, mass shooting), this is ultimately a story about healing and finding guardian angels in the most unlikely places. Moving and, unfortunately, timely.--Erin Cataldi
Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.