We Are the Light by Matthew Quick

BIBLIOGRAPHIC DETAILS:
-PRINT: COPYRIGHT: November 1, 2022; ISBN: 978-1668005422; PUBLISHER: Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster; PAGES: 256; UNABRIDGED (Hardcover info from Amazon.com)
-DIGITAL: COPYRIGHT: July 20, 2021; PUBLISHER: Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster; PAGES: 251; UNABRIDGED
* (This version) AUDIO: COPYRIGHT: November 1, 2022; PUBLISHER: Books on Tape; DURATION: 6 hours (approx.); Unabridged; (info from Libby; LAPL)
Feature Film or tv: No

SERIES: No

MAIN CHARACTERS: (list not comprehensive)
Lucas Goodgame - Protagonist – high school counselor
Darcy Goodgame – Lucas’s wife
Karl Johnson – Jungian Analyst
Jill Dunn – Darcy’s best friend
Eli Hansen – Jacob’s brother
Jacob Hansen – Troubled youth who caused a tragedy
Mark – Co-owner with Tony of the local movie theater
Tony - Co-owner with Mark of the local movie theater
Sandra Coyle – A lawyer on the school board
Isaiah – Majestic high school principal
Phineas – Lucas’s Jungian therapist
Bobby – Cop

SUMMARY/ EVALUATION:
-SELECTED: I saw the print of this at a book sale and it intrigued me so I found the audio version on the library’s Libby app.
-ABOUT: A high school counselor writing to his former analyst who has given up his practice, relaying his experiences after a traumatic event experienced by Lucas and many in his community.
-LIKED: Epistolary format; That Lucas has metaphysical experiences that *could* be explained away, but the story teller doesn’t go so far as to do that, leaving us free to think that he either enveloped mundane experiences with his imagination, or they were real. That character names may have psychological or Biblical significance, but because not all names are, one could dismiss this as their own imagination. Examples: Lucas-derivative of Luke(?) Goodgame-because the character so needed his baseball coach father’s praise(?); Karl (the *Carl* Jungian analyst (?). And then that brings me to another analogy that I couldn’t be sure was intended; Lucas’s writing to his analyst who wasn’t responding, reminded me of the sense of unresponsiveness we sometimes feel to our persevering prayers.
-DISLIKED: Nothing. Good story, whether or not a read too much into it.
-OVERALL: I liked it, and can’t decide if recommending it to people with a depressive bent would be a good thing, or not so much, because maybe they would wallow in the tragedy of it all, rather than the author’s emphasis on healing.

AUTHOR:
Matthew Quick
From Wikipedia:
“Matthew Quick (born October 23, 1973) is an American writer of adult and young adult fiction. His 2008 debut novel, The Silver Linings Playbook, became a New York Times bestseller and was adapted as a 2012 movie of the same name starring Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence.[1][2]

Quick was a finalist for a 2009 PEN/Hemingway Award, and his work has been translated into several languages.[3] In 2012, his young-adult novel, Boy 21, was reviewed favorably by The New York Times.[4]

Quick was a finalist for the TIME 100 most influential people of 2013.[5]”

NARRATOR:
Luke Kirby
From Wikipedia
“Luke Farrell Kirby (born June 29, 1978) is an American-Canadian actor.[1] In 2019, he won a Primetime Emmy Award for his guest role as Lenny Bruce on the television series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.”
Luke’s narration here is perfect! (So, I’m not going to wonder if his name, being the Biblical one that I’d wondered if the protagonist’s name was derived from, had any bearing on his being chosen for this narration).

LOCATION(S)
Majestic, PA

DATE(S):
N/A

GENRE
Fiction; Literature

SUBJECTS:
Tragedy; Psychiatry; Carl Jung; Romance; Loss; Community; Teens; Psychic healing; Psychosis

DEDICATION:
“For the wise and generous Jungian who finally got me to click my heels three times. Thank you.”

SAMPLE QUOTATION:
From “Chapter 3”
“Dear Karl,
Since you still haven’t written back, I’m thinking maybe I’ve told you too much too fast, and yet there’s so much I still haven’t said. I’ve been quite selective. But I forget that you are also still in mourning and have clearly—via the letter you sent terminating my analysis, as well as your silence—expressed your need for physical, mental, and emotional space. I worry that I’m overwhelming you, especially since I am no longer paying for your time.
I do have money.
The life insurance company accepted Darcy’s death certificate, which Jill sent them, and so they paid out on the small policy. And Isaiah arranged for me to be on paid leave, so I still have health insurance and a biweekly paycheck, which Jill keeps track of for me. I find it hard to believe it’s a matter of money, but I’d be willing to accept an increase regarding your hourly fee. You’ll eventually need an income again, right? I am happy to give you what money I have. Just name a price and I’ll have Jill write a check. Even if it’s just letters and no face-to-face meetings. A phone call down the line, to break the ice. And then who knows?
Darcy says I should keep sending these letters regardless of whether you write back. She says it’s the writing that helps me most and that no one is forcing you to read them. That my envelopes might sit on your kitchen table for weeks or months until one day psyche will command you to open and read. Then perhaps you’ll be moved to restart my analysis. And we won’t have to make up for all the lost time because we’ll have a handy detailed record of everything that’s been happening to me right here in black and white.
I have mixed shaky feelings lately.
Again, I don’t want to shame you, but the lack of a reply—especially after all the hard emotional work I’ve already stuffed into envelopes—has touched my father complex a bit and has me worried about my abandonment issues creeping back into my primary operating system. I’ve been trying to bring that to consciousness and be aware of it, like you always say. It’s like when Freud rejected Jung and then Jung had that breakdown where he slept with a loaded pistol next to his bed just in case he needed to exit the planet.
You’d want to be Jung and not Freud, I realize, so maybe that’s a bad analogy.
But regardless of all that, this is the last time I’m going to begin a letter with a hedge or an apology. It should be clear by now that I feel conflicted about writing you, even though I also feel one hundred percent compelled at the same time. “Karl needs you!” psyche continues to scream every day. “Don’t give up on him!” And so I will soldier on and try to win the battle for Karl. The best part of my soul loves the best part of your soul. I want you to know that statement is accurate and feel its truth as self-evident. “Like the sun rises and sets daily,” you used to say.
I remember you told me about Jung visiting a tribe of indigenous people and how they told him that they helped their father, the sun, cross the sky. They viewed it as their life purpose—helping their sun god make his journey each and every day. That’s how Jung learned humans actually affect and maybe even cocreate God. And that’s why we need to avoid serving our neuroses, because it separates us from the Self and therefore limits our ability to help God manifest in the here and now.
Maybe with these letters—even if you are only reading and I’m doing all the writing, for now—you and I can help our own metaphorical sun god cross his metaphorical sky.
Darcy says that my writing you is in service of separating my true inherent self from my neuroses, which can only improve everything both in consciousness as well as in the unconscious.
I remember when you used to tell me that my unconscious was always talking with your unconscious, both of which were in conversation with the collective unconscious and that all of this dialoguing was necessary and important and maybe even divine.
I realize that I don’t have to remind you of all of this, since you have been studying Jungian thought for your entire adult life and I’ve only been submersed in it for less than two years. But you told me to listen to my soul, saying, “Psyche always knows!” while shaking a finger over your head. I can still see the hopeful twinkle in your sky-blue eyes. It continues to give me strength.”

RATING:.
4.5

STARTED READING – FINISHED READING
8-17-2023 to 8-20-2023 ( )

author of "Silver Linings Playbook". Is the story of a shooting in an American town in a theatre told from the point of view of one of the survivors. Written in Letters to his therapist. The story grips you, makes you want to cry, and makes you think about the book days afterwards. Very well written. ( )

Told entirely in letters this novel is Weird, sad, and uncomfortable, but ultimately hopeful.

How would someone cope with the aftermath of a mass shooting in a small town?

This is written by a LaSalle graduate and it’s set in a fictional Philadelphia suburb. I couldn’t help but associate Majestic, PA (the setting of the book) to Phoenixville and the Colonial Theater and that made it just feel that much more uncomfortable.

The acknowledgments mention he was inspired by Gordon Light foot’s song If You Could Read My Mind. I’m listening to that now as I wrote this. It feels right on.

All that said — I didn’t enjoy it but I’m also glad that I read it.

BOTM

( )

I read this book straight through this afternoon. It was a Book of the Month choice in November of 2022 which had newer books placed on top of it until today when I finally pulled it out! The story follows Lucas Goodgame who lives in Majestic, PA, a small town suffering from a terrible tragedy. He sees his deceased wife, Darcy, every night in the form of an angel. It's only when Eli, an eighteen year old starts camping in his backyard that they start to work together to heal their town and themselves. So highly recommended! A perfect book to finish off this year. ( )

What a perfectly lovely story in so many ways. I was surprised to turn to the back of the book to see a picture of Matthew Quick and realize that he sort of resembles John Fetterman who has been so wonderfully forthcoming about his dealings with his own mental illness struggles, particularly with depression and here we have Quick describing his difficulties with a lengthy and severe writer's block with depression and anxiety. This book is just a beautiful description of Lucas's efforts to work through his own mental illness with the loss of his wife in a mass shooting episode and then....with the arrival of Eli. I really appreciated the author's way to work through the entire picture of an individual's problems....something that is all too common in the population today what with gun violence and other societal problems that are so much a part of today's world. ( )