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Matthew Quick: Novelist “Silver Linings Playbook”

By Meredith Alloway · February 6, 2013

Before it was a hit film, garnering 8 Academy award nominations and selling out theaters worldwide, Silver Linings Playbook was a novel. Writer Matthew Quick quit his teaching job, lived in his in-laws basement and after three years made his novel debut. It was about a man named Pat who couldn’t seem to get his life back together. Five years later, Quick’s novel is the Weinstein Company’s hit of the year and stars Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence. How did Quick get so lucky? He simply says it’s about “following your bliss.” “You have to believe in a dream that 99.9% will say is delusional.”

ATW: You taught high school for a while. Silver Linings Playbook is definitely about learning from unexpected teachers in your life. What were some of the lessons your students taught you?

Quick: When I was teaching, at the time, I didn’t realize how much my students were also teaching me. I was encouraging these kids to follow their bliss. Many of them were forced into science or math because that’s where the money is. But I would tell them, ‘You live in a great country’ where you can be an artist. Seeing 16 yr old kids responding to this message, I thought you’ve got to do it yourself or you’re a hypocrite. I thought about how I wanted to set a good example. Just today I got three emails from former students. One is a doctor who said he thinks about the fact that his patients each have their own story attached. It just shows that literature has impact in the real world.

ATW: You’ve always loved literature and you studied English in college. What were some of the authors or pieces you read that greatly influenced you? That made you think, “Yes, this is what I want to do with my life?”

Quick: When I started to read Kurt Vonnegut. He wrote in a voice I could understand. I love Shakespeare. I love all the highbrow literature, but Vonnegut writes stuff that makes me laugh. Of course underneath all of it is a point. It made me think about how when you make choices about storytelling, you either increase or decrease your audience. I was young and before you make art, all you have is your opinion. This opinion can become a trap that limits you. I started to blossom when I really realized my truth. You have to tell stories that you would have read when you were sixteen.

ATW: So the story for Silver Linings Playbook all started when you quit your job and decided to live in your in-laws basement and just write. People were calling you crazy. How did you persevere through that time in your life, what or who was your support system.

Quick: I have an amazing wife. She encouraged me to do this. She all but forced me to do it. I am definitely an intense person. All writers see the world differently. That doesn’t always make us the easiest people to be around. My wife had a great deal of tolerance. I would write 12 hours a day; 7 days a week and she gave me that space. But most of my friends from Philly [Matthew’s hometown] aren’t artists; they don’t understand what I do or why I have a need to do it. When I was in that basement, I made these characters that made me feel less alone. I could go on this journey with them. When I was that blue-collar kid and I picked up a book, I thought  ‘Ernest Hemingway understands what’s going on in my head.’ It was a lighthouse in the darkness. I could read these books and feel less alone.

ATW: So you create these characters that while you’re writing sort of keep you company. Your other novels Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock and The Good Luck of Right Now both have some quirky characters like a Humphrey-Bogart obsessed neighbor and a librarian who believes she was abducted by an alien. Where do these extremely strange and specific characters come from within you?

Quick: My process really is that I write in first person. The first thing I look for is a voice. Once I get that down, the character comes. I sound like a mad man, but the voices are just in my head; they sort of bubble up from my subconscious. If I start to psychoanalyze them, I ruin it. It’s only in retrospect that I really start to think of course this and that makes sense. Re-reading Silver Linings, which I hadn’t since 2006, Pat is obsessed with working out and does it in the basement. That definitely pertained to what I was going through in my own life. I can look back now with some clarity and see clear parallels in life. But I guess when writing, I say ‘What are the voices that I have to birth into the world.’

ATW: Many of these voices you’ve birthed are hopeful characters and also outcasts. Why do you think you’re drawn to explore these underdogs of society? Were you one yourself growing up?

Quick: Growing up I think I was a secret outcast. I always fit in easily enough, but I felt terribly alone. I always got invited to parties, had girlfriends; I always had friends.  I didn’t look different. But I felt different. I would listen to the people in my community and think, ‘Don’t say all the stuff that’s going on in your head’. I learned how to blend in. There was the part of me that was rooting for me to be real. To tell people, ‘There’s this part of me that you don’t know, and you’re probably not going to like it, but I can’t suppress it anymore! I have to put it into the world.’ If you’re really going to make it as a writer, the odds are stacked against you.  With the success of Silver Linings people have been saying, ‘Well enjoy it cause it’ll never happen again.’

ATW: Well clearly they’re wrong! You have already sold your latest book to Dreamworks!

Quick: [laughing] Right, but it doesn’t happen to everyone, and it’s not an easy business to get into. You have to be optimistic. You have to believe in a dream that 99.9% will say is delusional. Pat has to believe he’s going to get Nikki back. It’s the narrative he tells himself to get out of bed every day. We tell ourselves these stories and they give us hope and they make us believe in ourselves.

ATW: There’s also the element of sports in both your novel Boy 21, with basketball, and then football with Silver Linings Playbook. The characters use sports, even if subconsciously, to find that hope and bring them closer to happiness and to each other. Why sports?

Quick:  It plays that role in my own life. When the Eagles won, it affected my household! I think that’s a story we tell ourselves too. How ridiculous it is! We say we’ll die happy if we win the Superbowl!  It’s a game, and it’s completely meaningless unless we put meaning into it. It’s the story we create. When I coached high school basketball and soccer, we told them it was really important to win a game. We put a lot of importance into it.

ATW: When I watched Robert De Niro, I couldn’t help but see how similar he was to my dad! When the Rangers lost the World Series last year, I didn’t call him for three days. I knew he’d need recovery time! But in growing up in that same sports influenced family, I always thought that it’s a way to divert blaming ourselves for failures and instead we can blame the sports team.

Quick: Definitely. People can’t go scream at their bosses, but you can scream as loud as you want at the TV and say all the things you would do differently if you were the coach of the Eagles. Our lives can be terrible Monday through Friday, but if the Eagles win on Sunday, we’re ok because it’s socially acceptable. People don’t question the logic, because we’ve already bought into the narrative. Even in writing, why are words, symbols on a page able to create emotion? Because it’s a narrative, a story that as a culture, we’ve bought into.

Perhaps this is why Matthew Quick’s novels have found such great success. At the end of the day, he’s purely a storyteller. As a writer, he takes his talents as an opportunity to provide companionship to his readers. His characters, all quirky, lovable and oh-so hopeful and hopeless take us on their journey.  While we walk their path, perhaps we not only learn about the characters, but also something about ourselves.