Matthew Quick’s latest novel takes an honest, empathetic look at the realities of a grief-stricken community

Written by ZACHARY HAYES

How do we even begin to reckon with the brutality and devastation of mass shootings when it seems the next one is perpetually looming just around the corner? The stories we are told and the details they are centered around have become commonplace: the shooter’s motives, the political posturing, the memories of those who lost their lives. These are striking, significant events, but the realities of these tragedy-stricken communities and their survivors are often overshadowed by what they’ve come to represent, reduced to a mere statistic, yet another log on the fire. In We Are The Light, Matthew Quick rejects this treatment, focusing his attention on those left behind with a keen, empathetic eye for the messy complexities of human grief. It is a hopeful triumph built on Quick’s strength in handling characters in the throes of mental illness. That said, there are a few moments when rhetoric slips through the cracks, and in a story that hinges so precariously on avoiding the black-and-white treatment of these topics, they can feel a bit distracting — if forgivable — by the end.

This intimate epistolary novel — told over the course of 18 letters — follows Lucas Goodgame, a survivor of a mass shooting at a local movie theater that has upended the small town of Majestic, Pennsylvania, as he writes to his former Jungian analyst, Karl, begging to continue his treatment in the wake of the tragedy. In his writing, it quickly becomes clear that Lucas is suffering from a serious and delusional mental illness, an evocative and deftly handled device that forms the backbone of this tale of communal trauma. Yes, his dead wife, Darcy, appears to him in the form of an angel, but the treatment goes much deeper than the stereotypical “madman” antics, inviting readers to take on a psychoanalytic eye as they leaf through his dissociated ramblings.

Lucas speaks of the tragedy with a shocking insensitivity, rattling off triggering details to Karl – whose wife was also a victim of the shooting – with no restraint while remaining curiously concise in his descriptions of his own emotional outbursts. Every word and revelation and evasion compels the reader to dissect it for its underlying nugget of psychological meaning, a gratifying trick that fits neatly alongside the book’s heavy use of Jungian thought. And yet, as convincing as Quick is in giving us an honest, complex look at a truly deranged mind, Lucas’ commitment and constant references to Jungian analysis can feel intrusive at times.

Quick makes it abundantly clear just how much this ideology influenced the book — dedicated to his own Jungian analyst, opening with the quote on Jung’s headstone, and acknowledgments filled with the arbiters of modern Jungian thought — but the disdain Lucas exhibits towards other, more contemporary mental health treatments can at times feel overly didactic. While I can’t argue with the success of Quick’s use of these ideas to create a compelling depiction of mental illness, I can’t help but think he got a little starry-eyed himself along the way.

Lucas may be the fiery falling star at the center of this story, guiding the reader’s eye with his surprisingly robust storytelling skills — surely a necessity to support such intricate magical thinking — but he is far from the only one suffering in the aftermath of this tragedy. The townspeople of Majestic — survivors and all — are affected in a myriad of ways, many of which delve graciously beyond the typical coverage of the grieving husband or family member. There is the theater owner, Tony, who contemplates cashing in on the tragedy, the best friend turned caretaker, Jill, who suffers in silence as Lucas disintegrates on her watch, and, most interestingly of all, the younger brother of the shooter, Eli, an innocent pariah whom Lucas takes under his wing. They are all as flawed as they are human and written with an endearing empathy that is emphatically hopeful, a comforting reminder that imperfection is a normal, healthy part of the grieving process.

There is, however, one glaring exception to this: Sandra Coyle, survivor turned scorched-earth activist. What surely began as a well-meaning portrayal of rapid politicization in the wake of a mass shooting — a parallel perhaps to the student survivors movement of Parkland, Florida — devolves into a caricature of the rabid liberal gun control lobbyist, an odd choice for a book that is so clearly devoted to complex, empathetic characters. Odder still is Quick’s apparent recognition of this character’s shortcomings. “No one in our movie is good or bad,” Lucas explains of the self-referential film he and Eli are writing. They are not “either-or but both-and.” Even so, the part they wrote for Sandra “admittedly is kind of thin.” But, while self-awareness does not absolve you of your sins, this is a minor hiccup in the wake of everything this book does manage to successfully pin down.

We Are The Light may be a bit too dark at times to be considered a feel-good book, but you will walk away with a rather good feeling, an infectious optimism that dares you to hope that we can heal from these increasingly dark times. Just make sure you consult with your Jungian analyst first.