The author of The Silver Linings Playbook (2008) tells a story of unexpected twists and turns on the road to recovery after a shattering tragedy. Lucas Goodgame is dealing with a lot. He's a high school counselor in Majestic, Pennsylvania, who survived a mass shooting in the town's historic theater. His wife, Darcy, was killed and has been transformed into an angel; his analyst, whose own wife was killed in the shooting, won't answer his desperate letters; and there's a kid camped in his yard who might hold the key to helping the town heal. Quick became a household name thanks to his debut novel and the 2012 Oscar-winning movie adaptation, and he's conjured a similar feeling of community and tender family affection here, with plenty of people helping Lucas cope with the unimaginable. That includes Jill, owner of the local coffee shop and his late wife's best friend. Jill feeds and cares for Lucas, and it's clear she wants more from him, but he's not ready--not when the angelic Darcy is visiting him at night, wrapping her wings around him and leaving feathers on his bed in the morning. But it's Eli, the shooter's younger brother, who has the greatest impact on Lucas' recovery. Eli is struggling with guilt--he saw his brother's behavior take a sinister turn and didn't warn anyone--and he pitches a tent behind his former counselor's house. Soon, inspired by Darcy's enigmatic words--"the boy is the way forward"--Lucas realizes that helping Eli make a monster movie for his senior class project just might help the teen, the traumatized survivors, and the town find meaning in the senseless deaths of 17 of its citizens. The novel is timely in light of what's taking place in the U.S. now, and some characters turn their grief into political activism, but that's not Quick's focus. He doesn't delve into issues like gun control or the shooter's motivations, which makes the story feel superficial at times. Instead, his focus is on Lucas' healing journey, the people who love him (we should all be so lucky), and how the mind makes "valiant attempts to protect us" until we're ready to deal with our losses. When it comes to facing tragedy and trauma, Quick's novel shows us that it definitely takes a village to heal and move on. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

A survivor of a mass shooting confronts his grief in this illuminating epistolary novel from Quick (The Silver Linings Playbook). In small-town Majestic, Penn., high school counselor Lucas Goodgame wrestles with the loss of his wife, Darcy, through a series of letters to his Jungian analyst, Karl Johnson. Darcy, along with Karl's wife and 15 others, were murdered in a theater during a screening of a "classic Christmas movie." (The allusion appears to be It's a Wonderful Life--Lucas details how Darcy visits him every night as a winged angel.) When the shooter's 18-year-old brother, Eli, starts camping out in Lucas's back yard, Darcy's angel assures him, "That boy is the way forward." Lucas decides to mentor Eli, and with the help of the filmmaker-theater owners, the pair collaborate on a monster movie to help Eli work through his demons. The effort helps Lucas as much as it does Eli, giving Lucas the structure he'd been missing from the sessions with Karl, which stopped for reasons that only become clear later in the narrative. Quick adds credible details of moviemaking and dynamic secondary characters to a crackling narrative, which builds to an excruciatingly honest disclosure. The author's fans will love this. (Nov.)

Just before Christmas, a teenage gunman opened fire inside a local movie theater, methodically killing 17 people--each one half of a couple--and leaving the town of Majestic, Pennsylvania, reeling. High-school counselor Lucas Goodgame was seated next to his wife, Darcy, when the shooting began, but exited the theater without her, bloodied and traumatized. The Survivors, as the bereaved theatergoers call themselves, band together to discuss grief counseling and gun-control legislation, but Lucas finds himself unable to cope with the continued discussion of the tragedy and becomes increasingly isolated. Yet when Eli, the gunman's younger brother, approaches Lucas with a creative idea for a project, the unlikely pair realize how much healing their friendship could bring. Blending Jungian psychology with the transformative powers of good food, long walks, and monster movies, Quick's (The Reason You're Alive, 2017) latest novel is a testament to the broken and the rebuilt. Fans of Andre Dubus III and Meg Mason will appreciate Quick's careful handling of Lucas' fragile mental state, allowing the full events of the tragedy to unfold gradually as Lucas heals. Sadly relevant in the wake of too many mass shootings in recent memory, Quick's deeply moving epistolary novel is a balm.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: This timely book from Quick, of Silver Linings Playbook fame, is likely to draw crowds.