The Reason Youre Alive, Matthew Quick
The Reason Youre Alive, Matthew Quick
3 Rating(s)
List: $18.99 | Sale: $13.29
Club: $9.49

The Reason You're Alive
A Novel

Author: Matthew Quick

Narrator: R.C. Bray

Unabridged: 5 hr 38 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: HarperAudio

Published: 07/04/2017


Synopsis

The New York Times bestselling author of The Silver Linings Playbook offers a timely novel featuring his most fascinating character yet, a Vietnam vet embarking on a quixotic crusade to track down his nemesis from the war.After sixty-eight-year-old David Granger crashes his BMW, medical tests reveal a brain tumor that he readily attributes to his wartime Agent Orange exposure. He wakes up from surgery repeating a name no one in his civilian life has ever heard—that of a Native American soldier whom he was once ordered to discipline. David decides to return something precious he long ago stole from the man he now calls Clayton Fire Bear. It may be the only way to find closure in a world increasingly at odds with the one he served to protect. It may also help him to finally recover from his wife’s untimely demise.As David confronts his past to salvage his present, a poignant portrait emerges: that of an opinionated and good-hearted American patriot fighting like hell to stay true to his red, white, and blue heart, even as the country he loves rapidly changes in ways he doesn’t always like or understand. Hanging in the balance are Granger’s distant art-dealing son, Hank; his adoring seven-year-old granddaughter, Ella; and his best friend, Sue, a Vietnamese American who respects David’s fearless sincerity.Through the controversial, wrenching, and wildly honest David Granger, Matthew Quick offers a no-nonsense but ultimately hopeful view of America’s polarized psyche. By turns irascible and hilarious, insightful and inconvenient, David is a complex, wounded, honorable, and loving man. The Reason You’re Alive examines how the secrets and debts we carry from our past define us; it also challenges us to look beyond our own prejudices and search for the good in us all.

About Matthew Quick

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 lives with his wife, the novelist-pianist Alicia Bessette, on North Carolina's Outer Banks.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Bianca

4.5 stars The Reason You're Alive was quite something. The more I think about it the more I'm impressed. This is the story of an old Vietnam Veteran, David Granger, who finds himself under the doctor's knife to have a brain tumour removed. Slowly, we begin finding out about David's life, as he starts......more

Goodreads review by Kasa

While reviewing an earlier book by Matthew Quick, I remarked that he wrote about men "on the edge of normalcy" who eventually find completion by the final page. This is another such study. In this case, David Granger has been harboring a long running case of PTSD. Fifty years worth. In the years sin......more

Goodreads review by Lucy

A gorgeous exploration into the after-effects of war, racism and humanity. Man, I cannot emphasise how much I loved this book. I'd adored The Silver Linings Playbook because of its warmth and honesty, and this book had that exact same feel, with plenty of humour and emotion thrown in for good measure......more

Goodreads review by disco

I keep asking myself why the hell I liked this book so much… and I still don’t know. I think everyone knows someone like David Granger but they are probably not as charming.......more