Book Review – The Good Luck Of Right Now

by Matthew Quick (Picador) ISBN: 9781447247500

Quick is the author of The Silver Linings Playbook, and The Good Luck of Right Now is even better than that novel.

Bartholomew Neil is 38-years-old and lost. His mother, who has looked after him his whole life, has just died from a ‘squidlike brain tumour’. Bartholomew is intelligent, but he’s different, and as his mother always said, the world doesn’t measure intelligence in the right way. Bartholomew’s mother always loved to celebrate the little things and she had a gift for making the ordinary extraordinary. She believed in the good luck of right now. How can Bartholomew make sense of her death and find meaning again?

He finds a letter from Richard Gere to his mother, in her underwear drawer. He knows it is a form letter sent out to fans to save Tibet, but he sees it as a sign that he should communicate with the famous actor after his mother’s death. Bartholomew’s story is narrated in a series of letters to the actor.

This book is beautifully-written, and the story is compelling. I had to know what was going to happen to Bartholomew, his new friend, Max, his priest, Father McNamee, and Elizabeth, the ‘Girlbrarian’ he likes. I read it in one day. Highly recommended.

Amanda Patterson
5/5

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