Call it fate. Call it synchronicity. Call it an act of God. Call it . . . The Good Luck of Right Now. From the New York Times bestselling author of The Silver Linings Playbook comes an entertaining and inspiring tale that will leave you pondering the rhythms of the universe and marveling at the power of kindness and love.
For thirty-eight years, Bartholomew Neil has lived with his mother. When she gets sick and dies, he has no idea how to be on his own. His redheaded grief counselor, Wendy, says he needs to find his flock and leave the nest. But how does a man whose whole life has been grounded in his mom, Saturday mass, and the library learn how to fly?
Bartholomew thinks he’s found a clue when he discovers a “Free Tibet” letter from Richard Gere hidden in his mother’s underwear drawer. In her final days, mom called him Richard—there must be a cosmic connection. Believing that the actor is meant to help him, Bartholomew awkwardly starts his new life, writing Richard Gere a series of highly intimate letters. Jung and the Dalai Lama, philosophy and faith, alien abduction and cat telepathy, the Catholic Church and the mystery of women are all explored in his soul-baring epistles. But mostly the letters reveal one man’s heartbreakingly earnest attempt to assemble a family of his own.
A struggling priest, a “Girlbrarian,” her feline-loving, foul-mouthed brother, and the spirit of Richard Gere join the quest to help Bartholomew. In a rented Ford Focus, they travel to Canada to see the cat Parliament and find his biological father . . . and discover so much more.
My Rating: 
“When something bad happens to us, something good happens – often to someone else. And that’s The Good Luck of Right Now. We must believe it. We must. We must. We must.”
The Good Luck of Right Now is an epistolary novel, in that it is comprised entirely of letters written to the actor, Richard Gere. As a result, it’s fairly easy to say that The Good Luck of Right Now is one of the strangest books I’ve ever read.
Our protagonist, Bartholemew Neil, is a 38 year old man who lives in a codependent relationship with his mother, keeps a journal of interesting things, and is in love with a Girlbrarian that he’s never spoken to. And he may be borderline autistic (though it was never explicitly confirmed). After his mother dies from cancer, his therapist, Wendy, advises that he make like a little bird discovering independence, and with the help of Richard Gere, a foul-mouthed man who loves cats, the Girlbrarian, and an ex-priest, he’s able to find his flock. This rag-tag group of characters was incredibly quirky, and yet Quick was still able to make me care about them – both because of their incredible strangeness and their normalcy.
Although The Good Luck of Right Now contains many difficult subjects (such as abuse and loss of a loved one), it is also incredibly uplifting. Despite his poor circumstances, Bartholemew is still able to see the good in people and selflessly offer his assistance, and even his home, to those in need. The idea of synchronicity – or “the good luck of right now” – is also an important theme; whether or not you believe that every action has an equal and opposite reaction, or that something good happens for every bad thing that occurs, it’s such a moving and powerful notion.
Overall, despite it’s overwhelming strangeness, I did enjoy The Good Luck of Right Now. I can’t wait to see what quirky story Matthew Quick comes up with next.
