Malaprop’s Book Store is excited to host Matthew Quick, author of Silver Linings Playbook, and his new book Love May Fail on Monday, June 29 at 7 p.m.
“An easy, enjoyable, and thoughtful read with laughs and tears along the way. Quick’s devotees won’t be disappointed.”
—Library Journal
“Quick, an ex-teacher, nails the symbiotic student-teacher relationship, with all of its attendant baggage, squarely on the head in this engaging slice-of-life dramedy with definite big-screen potential.”
—Booklist
“Darkly funny….readers will be engrossed.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A master scene-setter” (Boston Globe) with a “penchant for emotionally troubled, big-hearted characters” (People), New York Times bestselling author Matthew Quick explores the essential humanity that lives within us all in his acclaimed fiction. From the complicated love that forms between the former psychiatric patient and damaged widow in The Silver Linings Playbook to the quest for meaning undertaken by a ragtag group of misfits in The Good Luck of Right Now, Quick’s world presents readers with the imperfect possibilities we can find hidden in the baggage that comes with our families, friendships, occasional missteps, and even more occasional triumphs. Quick’s new novel, LOVE MAY FAIL (Harper; On sale June 16, 2015; $25.99), is an ode to love, fate, friendship—and the indelible impact that teachers can unknowingly make on our lives.
Portia Kane has embraced feminism and left her sleaze-ball pornographer husband behind in Florida. Finding herself back in the South Jersey of her youth, Portia decides to try to find the one man who ever believed in her—her high school English teacher, Mr. Vernon, who once told her to “make daring choices, work hard, enjoy the ride, and…become exactly whomever you choose to be.” This admirable man, she discovers, is now retired, broken, and in need of repair. But, can Portia—helped, or hindered as it were, by a motley cast, including a sassy nun, a recovering heroin addict, a metalhead little boy, and a hoarder mother—resurrect her former teacher? Only in the assured storytelling hands of Matthew Quick is such redemption possible.
A former high school teacher and coach, Quick drew on his own experiences in the classroom in writing LOVE MAY FAIL. “Every new teacher believes he or she can change the world, one student at a time,” he says. “But it’s slow farming—you plant seeds that don’t bloom for years, and you seldom get to see any flower in all of its glory.”
“Quick celebrates the power of ordinary, flawed human beings to rescue themselves and each other,” says Graeme Simsion, author of The Rosie Project. “His writing is shot through with wit and humanity and an ultimately optimistic view of people, without ever becoming sentimental.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Matthew Quick (aka Q) is the New York Times bestselling author of several novels, including The Silver Linings Playbook, which was made into an Oscar-winning film, and The Good Luck of Right Now. His work has been translated into thirty languages and has received a PEN/Hemingway Award Honorable Mention. Q was recently named number 13 on the Hollywood Reporter’s list of Hollywood’s 25 Most Powerful Authors. He lives with his wife, novelist-pianist Alicia Bessette, on North Carolina’s Outer Banks.
LOVE MAY FAIL By Matthew Quick
Harper / June 16th, 2015
ISBN# 9780062285560 / $25.99