We Are the Light: A Novel - Hardcover

Quick, Matthew

 
9781668005422: We Are the Light: A Novel
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 1668005425 ISBN 13: 9781668005422
Verlag: Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster, 2022

Inhaltsangabe

*“A treasure of a novel…read it and be healed.” —Justin Cronin * “Beautifully written and emotion-packed.” —Harlan Coben *

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Silver Linings Playbook—made into the Academy Award–winning movie starring Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper—a poignant and hopeful novel about a widower who takes in a grieving teenager and inspires a magical revival in their small town.

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 eighteen-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.

From Matthew Quick, whose work has been described by the Boston Herald as “like going to your favorite restaurant. You just know it is going to be good,” We Are the Light is “a testament to the broken and the rebuilt” (Booklist, starred review). The humorous, soul-baring story of Lucas Goodgame offers an antidote to toxic masculinity and celebrates the healing power of art. In this unforgettable and optimistic tale, Quick reminds us that life is full of guardian angels.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Matthew Quick is the New York Times bestselling author of The Silver Linings Playbook—which was made into an Oscar-winning film—and eight other novels, including We Are the Light, a main selection of the Book of the Month Club. His work has been translated into more than thirty languages, received a PEN/Hemingway Award Honorable Mention, was an Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist, a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, a #1 bestseller in Brazil, a Deutscher Jugendliteratur Preis 2016 (German Youth Literature Prize) nominee, and selected by Nancy Pearl as one of Summer’s Best Books for NPR. The Hollywood Reporter has named him one of Hollywood’s 25 Most Powerful Authors. Matthew lives with his wife, the novelist Alicia Bessette, in Beaufort, South Carolina.

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Chapter 1 1.
Dear Karl,

First, I want to apologize for coming to your consulting room even after receiving the letter saying you were no longer practicing and, therefore, could no longer be my—or anyone else’s—analyst.

I realize that your consulting room is connected to your home and since you’ve stopped practicing it’s probably become part of your house now, making it off-limits to me. I was on autopilot. Every Friday night at seven p.m. for almost fourteen months. That’s a hard habit to break. And psyche kept saying, “Go. Karl needs you,” which was initially confusing because I’m the analysand and you are the analyst, so I’m supposed to need you and not the other way around. But you always told me to listen to psyche and that the goal of analysis was to individuate and know the Self well enough to align with it. Well, my psyche really wants a relationship with you. It keeps saying you need my help. Also, Darcy told me to keep going to analysis. And I just generally wanted to go, as well. I’ve really missed our weekly “analytic container,” our two hours. Friday nights.

It was hard to manage everything without our sessions, especially at first. Many people offered to find me a new you, but I kept telling everyone I’d wait for Karl. I have to admit, I didn’t initially think I’d be waiting so long. Please don’t feel bad. The last thing I want to do is guilt-trip you, especially given all we’ve been through, collectively and individually. I just want you to understand. And you always say that I should tell you everything and never hold back.

I, too, haven’t been able to return to work since the tragedy. I tried a few times, but never made it out of my car. I just sat there in the faculty parking lot watching the students streaming into the building. Some would look over at me with concerned expressions and I couldn’t tell whether I wanted them to help me or if I wanted to be invisible. It was the strangest sensation. Do you ever feel that way? I’d grip the steering wheel so hard my knuckles would turn white.

Isaiah—my boss and friend and principal of Majestic High, in case you forgot—eventually would come out and sit down in my passenger seat. He’d put his hand on my shoulder and tell me that I’d helped a lot of kids already and now it was time to help myself. He comes to my house all the time too. Because he’s very religious, he’ll say, “Lucas, you’re one of the best men I’ve ever met and I’m absolutely sure Jesus has a plan for you.” Sometimes he and his wife, Bess, cook me dinner in my own kitchen, which is nice. They bring all the food and everything. Bess always says, “Lucas, you have to eat. You’re wasting away to nothing,” and it’s true. Isaiah’s a great friend. A good man. Bess is a fantastic woman. But Darce—you’ll remember that’s what I sometimes call Darcy, dropping the last syllable—says I can’t tell anyone about her transformation, and so it’s hard, because I can only nod and press my lips together whenever Isaiah and Bess say God has a plan for me, which makes them think I’m agreeing, rather than holding in a tremendous secret.

I went to their church a few Sunday mornings, back in January, for what Isaiah calls “worship.” I was the only white person there, which was interesting. I like the gospel singing. The first time I went, the purple-and-gold-robed pastor called me up to the altar and put his hand on my head and loudly prayed for me. Then he asked everyone in the congregation to come up and lay their hands on me while they also prayed. I’ve never in my life had so many hands on me. It was a kind gesture that I appreciated, but the funny thing was that I couldn’t stop shaking, even when the touching and praying ceased and the singing started again, which was uplifting. I thought I was having a seizure.

I kept going to Sunday service, but after a few weeks no one prayed for me anymore and I kind of felt like I was invading something—like maybe I was an interloper. When I told him how I felt, Isaiah said, “Ain’t no unwelcomed guests in God’s house,” which was nice, but Darcy said I shouldn’t wear out my welcome and so I stopped going to church, even though I liked and maybe even needed it. Perhaps I’ll go back at the end of the year for the Christmas season if Isaiah keeps asking me. Darcy said maybe that would be okay.

Last December, I attended seventeen of the eighteen funerals. Well, at least part of each. The funeral homes tried to make it so that no two services overlapped, because that’s the way we bereaved wanted it. But a few funerals ended up partially conflicting, mostly because everyone wanted their burials to happen before Christmas. I would have made at least an appearance at all eighteen, but the police wouldn’t let me into Jacob Hansen’s service. And I have to say your Leandra’s—which I attended in its entirety—was perhaps the best. I liked the way you personalized everything and resisted a more traditional format. I didn’t even know your wife played the cello until you showed that video of her in your living room the day before the tragedy. It made me realize how one-sided analysis can be, since you knew almost everything about my Darcy, and yet, I didn’t know your Leandra’s profession. I’m not sure I even knew her name before the tragedy, which is hard to believe, especially since we’d see you two at the Majestic Theater and we’d always exchange waves and smiles from a respectable non-boundary-crossing distance.

I also admire how you led the funeral yourself without the help of a minister or rabbi or priest. I’m not sure I would have been able to do that, even though Darcy’s funeral was just staged for appearances and her casket was obviously empty.

If you were worried about missing Darcy’s funeral, please don’t be. Like I said above, it wasn’t real. And I’m not sure anyone but me even noticed your absence at all the others.

Anyway, in the video you screened at your wife’s funeral—as you will certainly remember—Leandra was practicing for a solo she was to perform at a Christmas-themed show and the song she was playing really made me believe that I had to tell you about my numinous experience. It seemed like a sign. Proof that you and I were in this together and that I wasn’t going insane.

You’ll remember that the song was “Angels We Have Heard on High.”

I was surprised at how such a small woman could handle such a big instrument. And I marveled at the ethereal sounds your wife massaged out with her wonderful bow work. It was miraculous watching Leandra playing at her own funeral and I almost ran up to the pulpit right then and there. It was like God had come down from heaven and commanded me to tell you the good news about the tragedy, which was strange because I’m not religious. I’m not entirely certain that I even believe in God.

I didn’t run up to the pulpit, of course, but sat on my hands. And then Leandra’s version of “Angels We Have Heard on High” played over and over again in my brain, producing a sense of ecstasy. My body was right there in the pew, but my soul—or psyche—was somewhere high above, marveling at the early morning sunlight streaming through the stained-glass...

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Verlag
Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster
Erscheinungsdatum
2022
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1668005425
ISBN 13 
9781668005422
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
256
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Simon and Schuster Netherlands BV
info@simonandschuster.nl

Herculesplein 96
Utrecht
3584 AA
Niederlande

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