Silver Linings Playbook’s Matthew Quick: when people told him to give up
By Jasmine Agnes T. Cruz
HOW MANY YEARS should one believe in a dream without knowing if it will ever come true?
New York Times best-selling author Matthew Quick quit his stable job as a teacher, lived with his in-laws — not just for a short time but for three whole years — and wrote three novels in two years that he discarded before he finally wrote his debut novel, which just happened to be The Silver Linings Playbook. Mr. Quick’s book was so compelling, it was adapted into a film starring Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper which went on to win the Best Movie Oscar. So what kept him going those years when he had no proof that he would make it as a novelist?
“I think I’m a pretty stubborn person,” Mr. Quick told BusinessWorld on Aug. 28 as he was here in Manila for National Book Store’s Philippine Literary Festival 2015. “Usually, we think of that as a negative trait, but I think, in the arts, especially in the writing world, you have to believe in yourself more than other people doubt you. There was something inside of me that felt like I had to do it.”
In those three years, people would tell him to “get a real job,” ask him “are you being realistic about this?,” or say “we’re worried about you.”
“Some people were mean, but I think a lot of my friends and family members were just concerned,” said Mr. Quick. “They just didn’t understand that it wasn’t really a choice.
“I’ve read other writers say that the people who make it in fiction writing are people who can’t possibly do anything else. If you can work a nine-to-five job, you’ll do it. There are so many easier ways to make money than writing fiction,” he said. “For me I just knew, there was no choice. It felt like this fever, this madness. I had to do it.”
Silver Linings Playbook began as an essay on how Mr. Quick and his father bonded by obsessing about the Philadelphia Eagles at a time when they did not have a great relationship. Mr. Quick showed this essay to a friend who told him that the essay reminded him of the work of American novelist Pat Conroy who also had a difficult relationship with his father. “When I read those novels, I said, maybe there’s something here,” said Mr. Quick, and he began adding fictional elements into his initial experience, eventually writing his novel.
“My father was dead set against me being a novelist. He thought it was ridiculous. He was furious when I quit my teaching job,” said Mr. Quick. “The funny thing is, when I got published, my father started reading my work, and now our relationship is better. He gives my books to his clients. He comes to my readings and sits in the front row. He’s really proud. I would have never guessed that doing the exact opposite of what my father wanted me to do would bring us closer together. It makes no sense. It’s counterintuitive, but that’s exactly what happened.”
Though Mr. Quick admits that he mines his own life for his work, his novels are always a blend of his experiences and his imagination. In Silver Linings, the relationship between the character Pat and his father is similar to the distance that Mr. Quick had felt with his own father.
For one of his recent books, Love May Fail — in which a woman, Portia, tries to help her former high school English teacher — the author tapped into his experiences as a teacher. However, when people ask Mr. Quick if Portia is based on a former student, he says he sees a lot of himself in Portia, as well as a bit of his mother. He also identifies with the teacher. “It’s not about a particular person,” he said. “It’s an aggregate of all my experiences.”
Aside from Love May Fail, Mr. Quick has written quite a number of books since Silver Linings: Sorta Like a Rockstar; Boy21; Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock; and The Good Luck of Right Now. His upcoming book, Every Exquisite Thing, will be available in 2016 and is being developed into film by The Weinstein Company. So what’s his secret? Why is he so prolific? Explaining that he goes through depressive moods during which time he has a hard time writing, he takes advantage of those periods when he feels good and writes as much as he can. During these times, he can write up to 12 hours a day.
Three of his books were written after publishing Silver Linings and before the movie came out, so Mr. Quick had several years to work on other books before the hype of the movie made him a household name. “Before the movie came out, I felt a lot of pressure to make my living,” he said. “I think I wrote so quickly because I was afraid. I really wanted to make it.”
