Lucas Goodgame lives in Majestic, Pennsylvania, a quaint suburb that has been torn apart by a recent tragedy. Everyone in Majestic sees Lucas as a hero—everyone, that is, except Lucas himself. Insisting that his deceased wife, Darcy, visits him every night in the form of an angel, Lucas spends his time writing letters to his former Jungian analyst, Karl. It is only when Eli, an 18-year-old young man whom the community has ostracized, begins camping out in Lucas's backyard that an unlikely alliance takes shape and the two embark on a journey to heal their neighbors and, most importantly, themselves.
Timely. Relevant. Ripped from the headlines. Matthew Quick’s new novel, We Are the Light, is all the above ... He plunges deeper ... The novel takes the form of letters from Lucas to his Jungian psychoanalyst Karl ... These letters become a sort of diary, a glimmer of hope and a testament to the healing power of art, one of the novel’s major themes ... The challenge of an epistolary book is that the format can be confining, but for such a character-driven novel, it creates intimacy instead of limitations. Lucas proves to be a skilled storyteller, and as he assumes Karl hasn’t left his house since his wife’s funeral, expands the narrative by recounting how other survivors are healing ... It’s been five years since Quick’s last book, but his skill at crafting an engaging narrative around trauma is as strong as ever. When you read Quick, you don’t feel guilty if your tears are mixed with laughter.
A testament to the broken and the rebuilt. Fans of Andre Dubus III and Meg Mason will appreciate Quick’s careful handling of Lucas’ fragile mental state, allowing the full events of the tragedy to unfold gradually as Lucas heals. Sadly relevant in the wake of too many mass shootings in recent memory, Quick’s deeply moving epistolary novel is a balm.
Illuminating ... 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.
