“Dear Mr. Richard Gere, In Mom’s underwear drawer–as I was separating her ‘personal’ clothes from the ‘lightly used’ articles I could donate to the local thrift shop–I found a letter you wrote.”

From Matthew Quick’s The Good Luck of Right Now.

Bartholomew had spent his life living with his single mother, from his childhood up until brain cancer recently took her life; he believes that he was able to get through the last few difficult months because he and his mother pretended that he was Richard Gere (her favorite actor) and Bartholomew now finds himself writing to the actor the events of his life.  Now that his mother is gone, 39-year-old Bartholomew is not quite sure what to do with himself outside of attending Mass and his daily visits to the library to watch a woman (The Girlbrarian) who he can never gather the courage to talk to, but that doesn’t last long when his recently self-defrocked, alcohol-loving priest, Father McNamee, invites himself to stay with Bartholomew.  In order to deal with his grief, Father McNamee sets Bartholomew up with a grief counselor who connects Bartholomew with Max, a man who is grieving the death of his cat and is also the brother of The Girlbrarian (whose name is actually Elizabeth).  Through a strange turn of events, Bartholomew, Max, Elizabeth, and Father McNamee journey to Canada to meet Bartholomew’s past head-on, but what Bartholomew uncovers is beyond anything he ever could have imagined.

Quick’s writing style is unique, because the reader is allowed to read the narrator’s account of his life as he corresponds with Richard Gere, so that thoughts and emotions fit perfectly in the narrative.  There are several plot twists that make for a satisfying story, even though there is some foreshadowing early in the book.  One character’s extreme overuse of the F-word is quite tiresome to read and it dulls his portion of the story, but otherwise the characters are uniquely personable.  While The Good Luck of Right Now starts a bit slow, it ends as a very captivating story.